Parliamentary debates: Wednesday, 11 March 2026

09:00

Thanks, Mr Chair, and good morning to you all. We did begin Part 1 last night in terms of the online casino gambling, and my colleague who will join us shortly spoke about territorial applications. She covered a lot of questions just in terms of the fact that it is important that the licences will be undergoing an auction process.

I wanted to ask the Minister: in terms of the applications that would be considered under the process with the secretary for Internal Affairs, there was not, in the bill, the requirement to be domiciled in New Zealand—I’m focusing on clause 4—so the provisions apply regardless of whether the person is in or outside New Zealand. So what that, basically, means in terms of the licence, as I interpret it, is that the licensee, or the persons that will be setting up operations, will have the opportunity to make that decision based on operations, based on their industry, etc.

My question to the Minister is: what benefit will that have for New Zealanders in terms of this new online casino gambling? The concern is, and we heard this through a number of submitters, that if that requirement is that you do not have to be located in New Zealand with your operations, where is the economic benefit, or further economic benefit, for New Zealanders, particularly around employment? We know from statistics, and from a number of contributions in other bills, that a number of roles have been lost. So my question to the Minister is: what advice did she receive from officials in terms of that aspect or that component under this provision?

Secondly, I have quickly read the Cabinet papers, and there was a discussion—the reason I ask this question again, or want to reinforce this specific provision, is that in these economic times it is quite difficult for many Kiwis across the board. So, through the submission process, where we heard oral submissions on that specific requirement, what does New Zealand get out of it—not just the taxes and the levies that will be paid by the licence holders once they go through that whole process. I’d like to ask the Minister that.

Secondly, in terms of the provisions, how does that attract the dollars to remain in New Zealand if you’re going to be a licensee—I’m just going to quickly talk this through. So why was that decision made—on the basis of what New Zealand gets out of it. So we will receive the tax dollars and the levies, etc., in terms of that economic equation, but what about the relationship, especially when licence holders are going to be coming in from overseas—obviously they’re a big industry because they can make those decisions economically for their operations. I want to know what advice was received, and specifically around further operations located in New Zealand. So it’s not just that you’re coming through to set up your business but what about the other spin-offs, the good spin-offs—what advice did the Minister receive?

09:04

I hate to say this because it’s the first contribution I’m making today, but a lot of that contribution was already made by me yesterday, and I’ve addressed quite a lot of the member’s questions in response to her other colleague.

But just to flesh it out further, the overall benefit of doing this is that we end up with a regulated market; whereas, at the moment, it is completely unregulated. Once again, I just reiterate that last night I said that our free-trade agreements restrict us from prohibiting licences to be only offered to domestic operators. Then the question is: well, will some of them who go for a licence through the auction potentially be based here in New Zealand? Possibly, possibly, but if that’s what the rules, through our free-trade agreements, wish us to do. I’m sure there will be some New Zealand - based companies that would like to put themselves forward for an auction.

But the important point is that we need a competitive market, and if there are thousands of offshore unlicensed operators currently active in the unregulated market, it is important for us to retain a competitive market, because the difficulty is if you just allowed for a number of small New Zealand - based licence holders, a lot of people would not find that competitive and have the range of offerings that would happen because there would still be thousands of black market offshore operators around.

So it’s about channelling people into a market that they’d actually like to participate in, but putting those harm minimisation and consumer protection standards around it so people are better off than they are now, following no progress made by the previous Government for six years.

09:06

Thank you. I thank the Minister for her answer. Minister, it is important to recognise that when you’ve got some information through the bill—you know, we’ve gone through a whole process—there’s a lot that we don’t know, hence the questions that I ask. I appreciate that you’re elaborating in terms of the fact that some of the licence holders, once they go through the auction process, possibly could be locating their operations in New Zealand. But that does not give me comfort in terms of the requirement.

So it’s going to be up to an overseas industry company that’s been successful overseas, and they’re going to choose to go through the auction process, and they may be successful. The point I want to stress is that there should be accountability—and, yes, I’ve seen the provisions that are outlined here, but to attract some of the companies that will be going through the auction process, there needs to be a stronger requirement to New Zealanders that if you’re going to do these operations and you’re going to set up shop, that’s a good thing, but what we don’t know is how much capacity you are going to bring through New Zealand doors. Sure, you’re going to have to be paying taxes and levies, with all the different laws that are going to be set up under this bill, but you don’t actually have—or we don’t know that you’re going to have—a relationship in person with your company, etc., and your set-up, and that you’re going to help New Zealanders through this very large process. There’s a lot that we don’t know.

So I’m asking the questions on behalf of the submitters that came to see us, or came through the submission process: why are the successful licence holders not having to be located here in New Zealand? It’s not just about their online operations; they’ve got a commitment to New Zealand consumers.

09:08

I do hate to state the obvious, but in a modern online world, a lot of people don’t need to be based in the physical world in order to have a relationship within one country. A lot of countries are across borders, or multi-jurisdictions, and we do have the ability to have online meetings to hold people accountable—not necessarily face to face; we can do this in the online world. So I don’t necessarily believe it is important for us to have a physical presence in New Zealand when we’re dealing with a completely online market.

Mr Chair?

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan. I just need to say, members, that a new day and new speakers does not mean that the material we’ve done yesterday is somehow disregarded. We are starting to get a little bit repetitive and we’ll be looking for some new information, bearing in mind that the debate did go on for some time yesterday.

09:09

Thank you, Mr Chair, for that direction. I have a question for the Minister regarding subclause (6) of clause 4, and then I’ll move on to clause 5 in terms of the definition.

Minister, yesterday you mentioned the free-trade agreement (FTA), and I think that’s a really important question I want to ask in relation to clause 6. But I guess the broader question is while some of the new agreements, for example, like the New Zealand - United Kingdom FTA, the New Zealand European Union FTA, and the New Zealand - United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) don’t necessarily have investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses, some of the older ones, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, do have some of those clauses.

Minister, you mentioned in terms of the FTAs—has there been any advice been given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade around whether limiting the number of, potentially, offshore registrations for online casino gambling to 15 would imply that there is anti-competitive behaviour, which is what the Minister also mentioned yesterday, that would potentially trigger an ISDS clause in one of our FTAs—if that’s been a consideration?

The second question is specifically on clause 4(6), which is the requirement to provide information regardless of whether it’s in or outside of New Zealand. Do we know if there’s any analysis being done on whether that potentially interferes both in terms of the e-commerce chapters of our free-trade agreements and CEPA, or whether other information sharing and privacy jurisdictions of other countries will also play into that? I’m asking this specifically from the angle of subclause (6), noting that the ability for the Secretary for Internal Affairs to request information is further along in the piece. This is the specific overseas angle I’m looking at.

Into clause 5, I want to start with a couple of questions around the definition for “advertisement”. I want to pick up on a question last night from Ingrid Leary that I don’t think we got a response to yet around the idea of streamers and also influencers, and I want to check with you, Minister, on whether those people would be encompassed under the definition, under (a), of “advertisement”, under “sponsorship”—would “sponsorship” capture these other areas, if the Minister wouldn’t mind elucidating the committee? That’s my second question.

My third and final question for the time being is around clause 5(b)(v)—this is “advertisement”. I’m curious about this part. This is an exemption to what is considered advertisement: “any communication described in paragraph (a) that is made in the course of broadcasting a physical sporting event that is held outside New Zealand”. Let’s take the Winter Olympics as an example. Congratulations to our medal winners. If—oh, I’m blanking on her name.

Zoi.

Zoi. Yes. Zoi got two silvers. I was like, it’s “something-o-i”; what’s the first consonant?

Now, in terms of the physical sporting event, can I just check, when we’re talking about “the course of broadcasting”, it is, for example, while people are watching the live stream of the Winter Olympics, and the online gambling ad appears as a physical form in the background of an event or is part of the streaming in itself, that is exempted, because we have no control over that. But this does not extend to, for example, if they intersect or interrupt the live stream or the broadcasting of a physical sporting event overseas with an online gambling ad—would that be a correct interpretation of it? Let’s say you go: sporting event; interruption; ads, ads, ads; sporting event. Are the ads part also exempted under 5(b)(v), or is it not? Those are my three questions.

09:13

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to look at clause 4(5), and I want to ask some questions about the practicality of actually pursuing an offence under this Act. Now, the first thing I want to ask is—in that clause, we have the use of the word “person”, and when I look at the definition section, there is no definition. Is it intended that “person” would include any entity, and would there be personal liability? In difficult situations, we often choose to make people personally liable, even if they’re sheltering behind a company. This seems to me to be one of those instances where that is extremely important.

When I look at the subpart on the offences which relates to this, I can see that the offence is actually going to have a fine attached to it. I want to know whether it’s intended that for each offence, there would be a separate course of action. You’ve got in this situation, where you’re looking at participating in online harm on behalf of a person under the age—if there is more than one person, is there more than one penalty that is possible under that?

I’m also interested in the limitation that comes into place here of two years. Usually, when we have offences, we limit at six years at the very least, or we have no limit on a criminal offence. I’m not sure about the logic here when I can see that it’s very difficult to prosecute people outside of a country. Wouldn’t we be better, in this situation, given subclause (5), to make that as broad as possible, to cast that net, and to make it uneconomic? If you’ve got people in a different jurisdiction already, you’re going to have trouble, and then you’ve got people sheltering behind a company, if that is the person in this case. It seems to me worrying that we are not broadening this as far as possible, and in fact we seem to be limiting it to two years. I’d be really interested to know about that.

The general question behind this, Minister, is my concern that what we’re dealing with is rogues, and they are outside of our jurisdiction. There is a purporting clause here that says we’re going to catch people even if they’re operating off our shores. The Minister is saying we’re doing this because it’s the Wild West, but how attentive have we been to it being the Wild West? How creative have we been about making sure that we’re casting the widest possible net?

Practically, I think New Zealanders would like to know how the Minister intends to make sure that people who breach this law internationally are going to be held to account. What I can’t see are ways that are very practical in terms of—it’s a sort of ambulance at the bottom of the cliff issue, because it doesn’t seem that practical in terms of how we would do that. Pursuing debt outside of a country, or a criminal offence for people outside of the country, or people obscured, is difficult. I’m not saying it’s easy, but there are ways we could do this—through technology, for example. We could block people, etc., and it may be that that’s a wider issue. We could stop them operating in some ways. We’ve done that in other areas of the internet.

Why have we gone down this track? How confident is the Minister in terms of how we are going to catch people? Why did we set these limits and these amounts in particular, and who do they apply to? Those are the questions. Thank you, Minister.

09:18

Thank you, Mr Chair. I will firstly respond to Lawrence Xu-Nan’s questions about our free-trade agreements just to say that the advice that I have received is that we are compliant with our legal obligations and free-trade agreements.

There was also a question about physical sporting events that occur overseas and the advertisements within them. Look, this exemption is because we don’t have jurisdiction over broadcasting that is sourced from overseas for overseas events. Therefore, if an unlicensed company in New Zealand is potentially advertising in a country where they do have jurisdiction and they are allowed to advertise, it could fall that we start banning the ability to see Olympic Games or other events. I don’t think that would be the purpose of this law.

To the question, then, from Helen White, the definition of a person and an operator will be used interchangeably in prosecution matters. Ultimately, it depends on liability and on whether a person or an operator is penalised, but she also had questions about the enforcement powers that we do have in overseas territorial applications. The bill itself provides for a range of enforcement tools to ensure that the regime is effective. The Secretary for Internal Affairs will be able to issue take-down notices and formal warnings; use enforceable undertakings; apply pecuniary penalties, including fines of up to $5 million; and cancel licences where operators fail to comply.

The Department of Internal Affairs is already the regulator for gambling in New Zealand, and I’m confident it is well positioned to enforce this new system as well. But given that there is, essentially, a very borderless nature happening in the online environment, the bill does include specific information-gathering and information-sharing powers that do allow the secretary to obtain the information needed to regulate effectively and share relevant information with overseas regulators where appropriate as well. The extra-territorial application will apply to enable the take-down notices and enforceable undertakings even if the operator is based overseas.

09:21

Thank you, Mr Chair. The Minister of Internal Affairs has raised the issue of competition, and I’d like to do a back-and-forth exchange if you will indulge me. My first question is: how does the Minister see that a competitive environment will impact on gambling uptake in New Zealand? Will it increase or decrease gambling?

It’s quite simple. We are allowing for 15 licences. At the moment, due to previous Governments’ failure to act in this space, there are thousands of unregulated companies that people can use in the online world now, so it’s not that we are adding to the competition. We are quite simply putting competition inside a regulated market.

09:22

The Minister of Internal Affairs previously talked quite eloquently about the virtues of competition. Given that she gave a circuitous answer to my question, I would say that the answer is that competition will increase gambling, and, therefore, I would like to understand how increasing gambling within this regulated market is going to decrease harm. What evidence does she have of that?

The whole purpose of competition within the bill as it is drafted is for choice for people who want to participate in a regulated gambling market online. At the moment, there are thousands of unregulated companies that are offering in the New Zealand market. We are constraining that to 15 licensed providers. However, if you went too low and made it a smaller regulated market, the real trade-off there is that people who do want to gamble online—where it is legal and they should be able to—would have less competition, less choice, and, therefore, there would be more ability or more desire to use the black or unregulated market. Putting 15 companies into a regulated market makes for a safer market.

09:23

I move, That debate on this question now close.

We’re getting close. Keep it tight and specific and refer to a section, please.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I do have some new material to go over, and I just wanted to clarify that Part 1 is also covering the first schedule. I believe it is, but I just seek some clarification on that, because that’s obviously an important schedule for us to look at as well. I have some questions around the definition section, which we haven’t—

Yes, it does cover the schedule.

Thank you. We’ll need to cover that in this debate as well before we move on. The questions that I have really were around whether the interpretation clause, clause 5, which is part of Part 1, is sufficient to be able to properly be futureproofed in the sense of how quickly technology in this area is moving. Specifically, I wanted to refer to the definition in clause 5(a). Artificial intelligence isn’t specifically listed here, and I wondered whether that would be something that may mean that the definition of “advertisement” is too narrow to cover some of the new technologies that might be emerging. I appreciate that it is intended to be written in a broad way, but I do think one of the issues that we will have with a bill like this is the fact that we’re regulating an online space that is changing every day, and it’s not desirable for Parliament to pass a piece of legislation—despite the fact that we disagree with this legislation—that will soon be outdated and will need to be updated.

Additionally, I have a question around a change that was made at select committee, and that was clause 5(b)(iv). This states that any communication for administrative purposes is not considered to be an advertisement. That will, hopefully, be read in a very narrow way, but I would appreciate the Minister’s confirmation of that, because I don’t think we would want a situation where someone was an existing customer of an online casino gambling platform and they were already in communication and actually the administrative purposes for the company were to actually remind that person that they in fact were an option for spending their time and money on. That is a change that has come in at select committee. I just wanted to double check that the Minister feels that that is sufficient. Also, I think it would be helpful to be on the record. My understanding is that it’s narrow and it is purely for transactional communication, but it would be good to get the Minister’s view on that.

I have another question in relation to the interpretation clause, and that is on the definition of “communication device”. This literally defines a communication device as “machine, device, or thing”—or just “a thing”. In many ways, maybe having a broader definition will allay some of my concerns in relation to the outdatedness of it, but also it appears to be so broad that it could be “a thing”. Those are the questions I have on the interpretation clause.

I do have some questions in relation to Schedule 1, which is, essentially, putting in place the time limits for when this particular bill will come into effect, and we can see that because of some, perhaps, delay or view that this would have gone through a little bit faster, some of the dates have been updated in the version I’m looking at, which is the select committee version, and you can see that what we thought would happen in July 2026 is now happening in December 2026.

You will note, Mr Chair, that the question I have for the Minister is: given the fundamental changes in this bill, would the Minister not consider extending those time lines out to make sure that we have all of the regulatory harm minimisations in place and that we have everything set up in terms of making sure that everything is in place before we allow these online casino gamblers to advertise, which may indeed cause them harm?

09:28

Thank you, Mr Chair. Speaking to all of those questions, I’m also interested in futureproofing for new technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI) is one of those areas. The regulations do actually allow for the regulatory framework to respond quickly to changes in technology, which is why we haven’t been so explicit within the law but we are becoming more explicit within the regulations so that we can adapt to new technology over time. AI is one of those areas where the regulations can give the member some comfort.

There was a question about a change for communications for administrative purposes. The answer to this is yes; it is only for administrative purposes, so the member is correct. She had a concern about the definition of “communication device” being quite broad and referring to any other communication or things, and that, once again, just goes back to the overall issue of AI. It’s intentionally broad to deliberately futureproof for new technologies.

In terms of the question regarding the timing of this bill coming into force, I do consider that the time frames are reasonable because the regulations will be in place before people can advertise.

09:30

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendments to clause 3 as set out on Amendment Paper 539 be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to insert new clause 4A as set out on Amendment Paper 540 be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 5 as set out on Amendment Paper 541 be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s amendment to clause 5 as set out on Amendment Paper 533 be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 5 as set out on Amendment Paper 544 be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 5 as set out on Amendment Paper 543 be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments to clause 5 as set out on Amendment Paper 542 be agreed to.

09:37

Thank you, Mr Chair. Part 2 is, really, the part that sets up the regulated regime. I’m going to try a different tactic to try and get through all my questions in one hit, so that I can get some answers. I note that we’ve heard a lot of ideological responses from the Minister about why she thinks certain things will or won’t happen, but the questions have been very much about asking for evidence and modelling.

So I will ask in relation to this section, on clause 9 of Part 2: why has she opted for a cap versus a public health framework? If the public health and power minimisation is indeed one of the core purposes of this bill, which she has reiterated many times, then surely it would have been better to limit the scale, availability, and intensity of the online products rather than simply focusing on the regulation.

So if she could please explain what evidence and briefings did she have from officials when she looked at this part, to determine what was the right model: a cap on licensing versus other approaches which would have reduced the scale, intensity, and availability of online gambling; or did she even undertake that exercise?

When I say that, it’s with a bit of cynicism because I can see from a note on 16 January—official advice to Minister van Velden—there’s a whole lot of things here around revenue focus of the briefing that she was given. There were discussions around advertising regulations, there was advertising discussed prior to harm minimisation, there were consumer protections discussed, but there really wasn’t any discussion until much later on—I think it was around March—that the harm minimisation piece came into play.

Further questions I have are: if harm minimisation is a function of this bill, why is she allowing multi-year licences rather than having the ability to monitor what is happening in terms of harm and then being able to make a final decision about the licences? Under clause 12, the secretary can invite expressions of interest, and there are public notices that must specify a number of things. That includes the number of licences, the minimum amount of capital, and the date by which an expression of interest must be submitted. Why is there nothing in there about the track record of the licence applicant on harm minimisation, and what would happen if they had a bad track record of minimising harm? Clause 12 seems to be completely silent in that regard.

When we look at clause 14, paragraph (ca), which was added—and I believe that was after the Governance and Administration Committee received a lot of submissions around community purpose—it says: “information about any contribution that the person makes or intends to make for community purposes in New Zealand”. Can the Minister please explain how that will be weighted, and, more importantly, where is the accountability for that? If somebody offshore states that they’re going to do a number of beneficial things for New Zealand with their licence, how does she make sure or how does the Secretary for Internal Affairs acting on her behalf make sure that that has indeed happened, or is there no accountability in this bill, which seems to be the case? If there isn’t, should she consider, in the very many regulatory-making powers that are contained later in this bill, something where there could be an accountability mechanism for that? What we see is all these promises of community benefit that have been added, but, like many other provisions in this bill, there doesn’t seem to be any true accountability.

We also look at clause 18(1)(a)(iii), where “harm prevention and minimisation strategy” is one of many criteria that can be considered in information to accompany the licensing application. There’s no mention again of weighting. It just seems to be in a long list of things that could be considered. There doesn’t seem to be any requirement for that information to be released publicly. Would the Minister consider making regulations so that the public can see what paperwork has been provided around that?

In my last few seconds, it would just be good to note that the Minister talked about information sharing. Later on, we’ll be asking questions about what information will be going to public health officials to help minimise harm.

09:43

Thank you. I will kick off with a couple of the answers to Ingrid Leary’s questions, starting with why we considered a licensing framework. Look, the licensing framework was seen as the best way to limit the unregulated market. Capping the number of licences at 15 struck the reasonable balance between providing choice for consumers and ensuring a reasonably competitive market. With managing regulatory complexity and cost, harm minimisation is a core purpose of the bill, and operators will have to comply with harm minimisation regulations.

The next question, in relation to the licence, was: why are we allowing for multi-year licences? There’s a couple of really simple points for this. Firstly, most overseas jurisdictions that do allow for online gambling markets have a duration period ranging from one to five years. The proposed licence duration balances the need to provide certainty for licensed operators investing in the market with opportunities to possibly have new market entrants while managing the regulatory costs. It’s a balancing act.

There was also a question about why we do not need a track record of companies and their compliance. The answer is, yes, we do. They do need to know a track record as part of the licensing process. There is a three-step process for granting the licences, and the Secretary for Internal Affairs will be looking and considering a company’s track record.

To the question of why is it that we haven’t weighted any particular harm prevention strategies over and above other requirements of the law: the strategies must show that they follow regulations as a company and would be suitable to hold a licence, and so that is all part of a suite of information that is required for a company to apply for a licence and meet the criteria for licensing. It’s important that the Secretary for Internal Affairs has access to the information, but, ultimately, all of those bits are up for consideration.

09:45

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for the answers, Minister. I’d like to go back to clause 8, “Functions of Secretary”. I do have an Amendment Paper that we’ll go through, and I specifically want to look at clause 8(e), “to maintain a public register with details of operators and licences”. My Amendment Paper wishes to add: “to maintain the register of persons for online casino gambling established by regulations”.

Minister, we had a number of submitters that came through, in terms of the oral submissions. One of the things that this bill will do—and I have heard the reasons you have put forward specific provisions and are working with the secretary in terms of regulations. What I do want to highlight is that we’ve heard from a lot of students—university students over the age of 18—about the saturation of advertising. It’s become quite normalised in terms of gambling advertising. You’ve also elaborated on unlicensed operators, which is why we’ve got the bill before us. However, I do want to ask specific questions as to when the secretary will be considering—and there’s a process that will have to be gone through—and what are the components of the considerations for licensed operators that are coming in from overseas.

I’d like to draw your attention to one of the submissions that we received from Te Rangihaeata Oranga Trust, which is located in the Hawke’s Bay region. One of the things that the submitters raised in their written submission was the threat of addiction from more gambling, and while you’ve addressed the number of unlicensed operators that operate currently, we’ve then also got the issue of social media influences. This specific trust wanted to highlight to the select committee that gambling addiction is a significant public health issue in New Zealand as we speak. They also wanted to raise in their submission that the Online Casino Gambling Bill must “uphold its duty to protect and care for whānau … preventing further harm.” What will be the assessment that the regulator or the secretary makes, specifically when you require a public register so that the public can understand who is responsible for a licence? How can we contact them? We have significant concerns that the harm minimisation or harm reduction plans that will be registered under licensees just don’t go far enough.

There is also the issue around addiction. We have heard a number of submissions that have come through, specifically around how the bill will strengthen harm minimisation and protect New Zealanders from online gambling harm. The worry is, Minister, that while land-based casinos are currently a thing that you go into, online gambling through this bill, through this legislation, will be available 24/7. What protections will the secretary take into account for consumers in terms of what a number of vulnerable communities have raised through this bill? One of the good things about my Amendment Paper that I’ve put through is that it addresses the situation where you’re trying to get a balance of an economic benefit versus social harm minimisation and consumer protections. We’re going to keep asking those questions, because for vulnerable communities that are already being exposed to this type of marketing in terms of saturation, how strong are those protections going to be? How will the public—through these licences, once they go through the processes—be protected, Minister? How will the issue of young people who are at universities up and down this country and the issue of the saturation of advertising that is already coming on their phones be addressed? I would like to ask the Minister those specific questions.

09:50

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to take on and extend those questions so the Minister can, hopefully, answer my questions at the same time as she answers the questions that were just asked by Lemauga Lydia Sosene, because they’re really coming out of my portfolio. I have the community and voluntary sector as one of my portfolios, and I also have the sexual and family violence portfolio. I visit organisations that are at the pointy end of this—for example, Asian Family Services would be one—where I hear stories of addiction that is actually really harming families. It’s also difficult to capture in data the damage of that, and that’s because communities are quite scattered.

My question for the Minister is: how confident is she that we have a capacity to measure the harm caused by this type of gambling versus other types of gambling? The communities that are affected are often younger, but they’re also culturally diverse—so people coming in with a different culture in terms of gambling and with a level of isolation, quite often. The stories that I’ve heard from somewhere like Asian Family Services are completely heartbreaking. They’re about families just totally devastated by a problem gambler in their family, and often that behaviour has been part of their lives even before they’ve come to New Zealand because of the culture that they’ve come from. What I want to know is how much investigation there has been of that aspect and how much confidence does the Minister have that she knows the cost that the New Zealand taxpayer, for example, but also the families are paying for an extension into this area.

Then there’s the issue of youth, and it’s been raised a few times, but I don’t think we’ve been specific enough yet on that. Ricardo Menéndez March talked yesterday about a particular pathway in through gaming, but we know this world of the internet is playing out really differently for younger people because they’re completely acclimatised to it. There isn’t the attraction to going somewhere where those limits are; there is the blending of this with other parts of their online existence. How much did the Minister find out about that changing phenomenon?

We’ve just had an inquiry, which was cross-party and widely supported, into the issue of online harm. What I would like to know from the Minister, in addition to what I’ve asked, is how much crossover was there in terms of that report and that investigation. I think some of the submitters in that inquiry changed the minds and the understanding of those listening to those submissions, to the extent that there was a wide consensus across the crisis that we face in this issue and a desire to really take leadership in this area. What I’m worried about is that this area is actually subject to almost a counterforce in the area of online gambling as we open up to those vulnerabilities and the very same people are being affected in this way.

These are genuine questions. I’m very, very worried about the influence that an international online lack of involvement is having, and I would like the Minister to go further than simply saying that she is regulating, because she is also making money out of these things. This does look like the Minister is going to make money out of it—sorry, not the Minister. It is a motivation here that there will be money made, but if the money, even at a very selfish level of—[Time expired]

09:55

Thank you, Mr Chair. I will answer some of the queries that have come up so far, but I do just want to make it absolutely clear for anyone who’s listening that I am not profiting off this; I am simply the Minister passing through this law. It would be very improper if I was making a personal fortune, and so please refer to the Minister and the Government, rather than myself.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene has concerns about advertising for young people and the harm that it can cause. I also share some of those concerns. This bill goes some way to addressing, I believe, the concerns that she has raised because the bill specifies that the regulations will set out arrangements for operators and what they can and cannot do in terms of advertising and sponsorship. The Government has already agreed to the prohibition of sponsorship as part of the regime and, in the regulations, the prohibition of using endorsements for licensed operators’ products. This covers things like social media influencers—people who would be personally profiting by endorsing a licensed operator’s products. I know that concern comes from young people seeing influencers and potentially thinking that could be seen as a good thing if someone is getting paid for promoting a product. That is why we are limiting that social media influence.

One of the other things that I have heard, though, which I think would be useful to address, is quite a lot of the concern about young people and the ads that they’re receiving on social media for gambling are actually outside of this bill. This bill doesn’t go into sports betting, and I’ve seen a number of articles and concerns in the community relating to sports betting ads, and those are actually external to this regime, because this is not about sports betting. That’s actually a different part of the law.

There was a concern about maintaining a register where people can go to get information. The information about operators will be available on a website, and this is likely to be one hosted by the Department of Internal Affairs. There was also a question about what the Secretary for Internal Affairs will consider when they’re weighing up all the information. The secretary will be evaluating all of the information that they’re provided as part of the application process, as per the purposes of the bill and the licensing information required from the companies.

Helen White also then asked how confident I am that this will in some way minimise harm. Well, it’s got to be better than the six years that Labour did nothing to regulate this space. It is a completely unregulated market at the moment. One of the really important core components of this law is that, at the moment, the companies that are online are not paying into the problem gambling levy. As part of this law, the licensed companies will be paying into a problem gambling levy that will go some way to helping harm prevention activities. It will fund treatment and support services, community-based interventions, and research and evaluation to limit and prevent online gambling harm. That’s got to be better than the status quo.

Just before I take the next call, there are six parts to this bill. Obviously, each part is not a new opportunity to revisit the broad issues. They were very much covered in the first part. This part of the bill is very much the mechanics of the bill, so, really, what we won’t be able to do is revisit the broad issues around this in each part. If we can concentrate on the part, please.

09:59

Thank you, Mr Chair. I do have some specific questions in relation to Part 2, Subpart 1. My first question is in relation to the functions of the Secretary for Internal Affairs. In this bill, the Secretary for Internal Affairs is given, essentially, almost the entire responsibility to administer this new regime. They have to administer the licensing regime and investigate breaches. They have to monitor, they have to investigate complaints, they have to maintain a public register, and they have to prescribe minimum standards and approve forms. This is a significant amount of work that the secretary is being provided with.

What I wanted to ask the Minister is what Budget bids has she done to ensure that the Secretary for Internal Affairs will be able to perform these tasks above and beyond what it is doing at the moment. What plans has the Secretary for Internal Affairs provided her with on how this will be run within Internal Affairs? Have any steps been taken in order to allow this regime to be initiated at the time? We’ve already discussed that there’s a relatively short time frame for such a complex bill, so what steps has the Minister taken to ensure that her ministry is in a position to be able to fully implement the tasks, which are far-reaching?

The other question I have in relation to that is expertise and skills. This is obviously something which hasn’t been specifically done within New Zealand before, so what assurances has she had from the Secretary for Internal Affairs that those setting up this regime and administering it will have the skills and expertise to be able to make sure that this is done effectively? I’m sure that the Minister would have taken those steps and will be able to respond to me about the steps that she has taken.

The second specific question I have, in relation, again, to Subpart 1 in Part 2, which we are on, is on the interaction between this regime and New Zealand lotteries. Now, this is something that came up very regularly in submissions. Although there was generally an overwhelming feeling from submitters that gambling produced social harm in New Zealand and there was a feeling that we did not want to see a proliferation or increase in gambling, there was also a lot of understanding about the fact that lotteries provide a lot to the community within New Zealand, and there isn’t another option in terms of providing support to a lot of these community organisations and a lot of the good work that the lotteries does.

You’ll see that that’s reflected in a lot of the changes that the Governance and Administration Committee made to this bill, specifically in relation to clause 9(1)(c). It was specifically excluded from New Zealand lotteries. Then also we see in clause 9(2) that the Lotteries Commission is excluded, so I wanted to ask the Minister what assurances she has had that the cumulative changes to maintain lotteries as a separate regime will be maintained.

Additionally, even though the select committee did quite a lot of work to ensure that lotteries will be excluded from the ambit of this bill—I think that has been really, really, really clear, and I want to acknowledge the committee and the officials for the work that they’ve done to make sure that that is specifically stated—there was an additional concern that submitters raised around the impact on lotteries that may occur due to more people potentially participating in online casino gambling. So I wanted to ask if she’d had any specific advice that there would be any impact on the existing regulated gambling that we do have in New Zealand. Obviously, of course, we have a lot of goodwill that comes from that.

There have been a few comments on the harm of online gambling. I wanted to specifically ask: what in the regulations in relation to clause 10 will prohibit or protect children from being exposed to advertising that is for online gambling?

10:04

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of specific questions for the Minister. I guess the first question is that in clause 8, the Secretary for Internal Affairs performs both the function of the regulator but also the enforcer. I wanted to check whether the Minister has received any advice around the idea of one person or one agency performing both roles. As the Minister would appreciate, evidence of good governance is that the regulator and the enforcer often don’t sit under one particular agency. The reason for that is that it’s hard for them to, essentially, self-regulate and self-assess based on rules that they have determined. We see that throughout various other agencies as well, so I just wanted to check if that has been a consideration.

I do want to move on to clause 13 and the start of clause 14. We’re looking at Subpart 2 in terms of licensing process. In line with the first question I asked, clause 13(1)(b)—and I know that this appears a couple of times later on. If there is a specific requirement for the public notice, and there’s a specific requirement for a person to express interest within 20 working days of the public notice, what circumstances would permit the secretary to grant a longer period beyond the 20 working days? Is the ability for the secretary to extend that also going to be available as part of that public notice so that way everyone will be able to be eligible to have a longer extended period of time, or will it be a case by case process, in which case how would that be made transparent and made equitable for all of the people who are applying to submit an expression of interest? That’s my second question.

My final question for the time being is a new addition after the Governance and Administration Committee process in clause 14(ca), which is information about any contribution that a person makes or intended to make for community purposes in New Zealand. I wondered, when we’re looking at this in conjunction with clause 14(b), which is each key officer’s full name, position, title, physical address, and contact details—we’ve already established previously that a person can be both within New Zealand as well as overseas, so it would be understandable that the physical address could be an overseas address.

But if we’re looking at information about any contribution that the person makes or intended to make for community purposes, would that mean that the person will also need to set up an incorporated society in New Zealand for any of those community-based purposes? Is that a requirement that’s needed? Under the Incorporated Societies Act, it requires at least the director of the incorporated society to have a physical address in New Zealand. I would be interested to know if that’s a likely scenario or interaction that is likely going to happen. Those are my three questions for the time being.

10:08

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I don’t think we’re quite ready for that motion. Good try, though.

Oh, thanks, Madam Chair. I have some questions around the provision in clause 10, and I do have an Amendment Paper on the Table.

I’d like to ask the Minister in terms of this—and you’ve touched on some of the prohibitions for those young people under 18. My Amendment Paper speaks to the fact that I want to add in that the operator is enforced with monitoring systems to prevent people under 18 years old from participating in a platform consistent with an obligation in clause 38, which is around consumer protections to ensure gamblers are at least 18 years old.

What I’d like to ask the Minister is: what advice has there been from the officials in terms of actually identifying and protecting our young people, specifically those that are under 18 years old? We know a number of young people under the age of 18 years old do carry around their devices for education purposes, also for contact with parents, and the like. A number of them have devices or their phones. How will the regulator ensure, around the limitations around identifying, that there are going to be very strong protections to protect children? In earlier contributions, there was a real concern from those who actually don’t gamble, because they come across these advertisements pretty much daily.

What I wanted to know is: what advice was given to the Minister around consumer protection, specifically protecting our young people under the age of 18, but also around saturation on devices, etc.? It’s really important that the regulator’s obligations are intact. Will there be restrictions around content? Will there be stronger enforcements around advertising? I recognise that licence holders, once they go through the process, won’t have to be located in New Zealand. Minister, you’ve talked about how a lot of operations can be done online, but in terms of protecting our young people, which is the basis of my Amendment Paper, how will this be done? Has the regulator got strong conditions? If you could explain that based on evidence rather than having ideology, policies, or provisions—how has that been done, and based on what evidence was that provided to internal affairs? Then, moving forward, what will be the review process in terms of the secretary having very robust systems in place?

10:11

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple of questions. The first one actually relates to an amendment I have, and it’s Amendment Paper 556. It inserts a new clause, clause 8A, to go after 8. It’s to actually ensure that the Secretary for Internal Affairs is obliged to have effective means of seeking the views of others, especially people that are obviously impacted by the harms of gambling. This amendment replicates section 13 of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Act. It imposes that obligation to seek those views, just to ensure that there is meaningful consultation. I actually think it’s a really important component for this Act to ensure that we do try and minimise and prevent harm as much as possible. I’m just wondering whether the Minister has actually sought any advice prior to me putting this amendment in about how the secretary will consult with those affected parties that actually do suffer more from gambling harm than other demographics.

I also have a question around clause 29. It talks in clause 29 about how, if the secretary was to propose to suspend or cancel a licence—in 29(1)(b)—they need to give at least 20 working days to respond. I was just wondering what the mechanisms are, actually, if there is a licence holder that is creating significant harm and how that can be shortened so that, therefore, there is not a 20-day working period and so that it can be revoked immediately.

Also, I just want to quickly touch on the amendments that I’ve put relating to clause 10, because I did notice earlier you talked around the impact of sports betting in social media, and that’s been seen quite a lot. Once we have these 15 licensed operators, then social media is going to not just have sports betting; it’s going to have these online casino gambling sites as well. That’s just going into people’s pockets 24/7. My amendments around clause 10 are to actually prohibit all forms of advertising to really reduce and prevent that harm coming from gambling. Thank you.

10:14

Thank you. Look, I will go some way to answer many of the questions that we’ve had this morning. Camilla Belich has asked about the impact that this new regime will have on Lotto. The overall point is that the clauses specified in here about Lotto are that operators will not be able to offer Lotto products, for the reason that Lotto provides a community benefit. It is hard to know what will happen in the future with Lotto, but one of the things—and I’m sure my other colleague in the House Lemauga Lydia Sosene will be able to also talk to her about—is the fact that for the past two years, Lotto has had record level profits and it’s doing better than ever, especially as it has actually moved to its own online or app-based version of its products itself. It’s very much set up for the modern world and competing with people who like to gamble.

Camilla Belich also asked about functions of the Secretary for Internal Affairs and what Budget bids I had done. Look, the operators themselves will pay levies to recover the costs of running the regime. That’s part of the regulations. There are not going to be ongoing, ongoing, ongoing Budget bids in order to keep the regulator working.

Camilla Belich has also asked about the expertise and skills within the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and if I have confidence in the staff within DIA to regulate the new market. DIA is already an experienced regulator in gambling as well as online environments, because they deal with child sexual exploitation content as well as online terrorism content. Within the money side, they deal with anti - money-laundering, and they are the regulator for that across Government. DIA is the appropriate place with the appropriate skills.

Camilla Belich also asked about the protections for people under the age of 18, which came up with a number of colleagues. The bill does require operators to ensure and verify that gamblers are at least 18 years of age, and it is a breach of licence conditions to allow someone under the age of 18 to be using those platforms.

Lawrence Xu-Nan also then asked about independent regulators, once again bringing into consideration the skills and expertise of DIA and whether or not it’s the appropriate place. I did consider some other places for it to be held, but, on balance, I decided that DIA was the appropriate regulator, given its experience in regulating gambling in other forms of gambling in the physical world at the moment as well.

Lawrence Xu-Nan also asked why the secretary would grant a longer period than 20 days. Look, extending the time frames is at the discretion of the secretary, and that would take into consideration the time frames needed for an applicant to apply. Lawrence Xu-Nan also asked about clause 14 and the contribution to New Zealand and whether or not someone needs to set up an incorporated society. No, they do not.

There’s also questions then from Lemauga Lydia Sosene about the operator and advertising—preventing people under 18 being advertised to. Look, the details of how people under 18 are protected are in the regulations, which I understand can be seen online through proactively released Cabinet papers.

Mike Davidson—I’ll knock off quite a few here—we’ve got: should the secretary consult with relevant groups before making the regulations? The existing consultation provision is consistent with the Gambling Act, and there are no restrictions currently on who should be consulted, but that doesn’t need to be detailed in the legislation, so the Government will not be supporting that amendment. Should we suspend or cancel licences? Why do you need 20 days to respond? That time period reflects natural justice processes.

There’s also a question about advertising harm on social media and saturation. Look, I totally get it. There are a lot of ads out there, but there are more abilities under the law that we are creating to put in place enforcement to get rid of illegal advertisements and focus people who are in the licensed regime, which is up to 15 potential competitors, to have very specific harm minimisation standards and controls around the ads.

10:19

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I’ll just remind colleagues on the other side of the Chamber that, although we appreciate—

Don’t give us a lecture.

We would appreciate their engagement, Simon Watts, so if you’d like to take a call, I think some views from the National Party in this debate would be interesting.

I want to talk about licensing. This particular part that we’re looking at, Part 2, has the entire licensing process, which we haven’t gone into in any detail on at all, and that’s just in the first part of it. We also haven’t talked about Subpart 3 at all, and then we have an appeals process we haven’t touched on at all. So I’d just note that.

But my questions are in relation to the licensing regime, which is quite detailed, and I have a few questions around how it will be implemented. My understanding is there are a few different tiers of licensing. If we look at clause 11, there is an overview of the process, but then, at clause 11(3), the clause states that the proposed legislation, for the purpose of this, will only be a “guide and effect of this subpart”. I just wonder, really, how strictly the Minister would be expecting adherence to that, given that that is essentially a guide provision, which is relatively unusual in legislation.

The next step is then the expressions of interest that will be asked for. I note that in clause 13(2), there’s potentially a prescribed fee, and it states there: “the prescribed fee (if any).” I wanted to ask the Minister if there will be a prescribed fee under clause 13(2)(c) and what that prescribed fee will be, because that’s not a fee for a licence; that is a fee for an expression of interest almost prior to the licensing regime.

Then I have some questions around clause 14(b) and the key officers, which are defined in the interpretation section. Especially if these key officers are, in fact, overseas individuals, to what extent will the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) be checking the validity of the information provided? I think that probably in relation to licensing, making sure of the identity of those individuals and a way to get in touch with them—especially if they are overseas—is important.

I had a question in relation to clause 14(d). This talks about existing licences. Now, in New Zealand, we will not be in a position where they have an existing online licence, and so I wanted to understand whether, if that was in the future, when there are future applications for licences, that refers to New Zealand licences or whether this would extend to cover overseas licences that may be held, or, additionally, any other types of gambling licence. So I really wanted to know the extent of clause 14(d).

The other thing that I wanted to know is this. In clause 14(h), there’s extensive information which has to be provided around the criminal history or lack thereof of the key officers. I wanted to know to what extent will this information be publicly available, and the steps that the DIA has taken, because they are relatively onerous requirements, which I think is—I’m not questioning that, but the fact of whether or not that will be made public, and that is, in fact, even before they are invited to ask for an expression of interest. So I think it’s probably asking for the validity of whether they could even be in the process.

It is a complex process. Those are the first questions that I have. I do have some more questions around clauses 15, 17, and 18, but I’ll leave those for later.

10:23

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to move to clause 15, and I have two very discrete questions around clause 15(2) and (3). But just to, I guess, provide another angle to what the previous speaker, Camilla Belich, mentioned in terms of verification process, I would just like to ask, further, how the Secretary for Internal Affairs would verify “source and amount of capital available” as a part of that criteria process.

But on to clause 15(2). This is an interesting clause, and I would be interested to know if the Minister wouldn’t mind providing an example of where an expression of interest would be likely to be declined because it would prejudice trade or maintenance of the law. Noting that we have the idea of the competitive measures, or any competitive measures, in some of our trade obligations, I just wanted to check if the Minister wouldn’t mind providing an example of that.

My final question is on clause 15(3), which is around crimes involving dishonesty. This is actually a very significant clause, and it does come down to the competitive nature as well, because the definition that the Minister has given is a New Zealand jurisdiction definition under the Crimes Act, but, as we all know, a person who is expressing their interest can be an overseas person as well. I want to check: do we consider crimes involving dishonesty, and make sure that we know what the overseas equivalent is of crimes involving dishonesty, as well, when we’re assessing overseas applicants, because they could have crimes involving dishonesty in an overseas jurisdiction that doesn’t potentially match up with the definition in section 2(1) of the Crimes Act?

So I want to check with the Minister how would the secretary assess that particular aspect in relation to overseas applicants, and whether there’s any other way of understanding or checking the validity of the submitters when it comes to overseas applicants. That, potentially, will unfairly prejudice—we’re talking about prejudice—New Zealand applicants, because they will be subjected to much greater scrutiny in terms of the ability to track and also align with our crimes law.

10:26

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to turn to Subpart 3, which I note we’ve only had about half a question on, I think, some time ago, and it’s quite a big section. I really want to frame these in terms of the risk of regulatory capture, because what we can see from this licensing regime is that there are a number of purposes, including competition in a commercial market, but also revenue gathering for the Government. I’m aware that there will be a tension once this is created between harm minimisation and the ability of the Government to gather revenue, and also the licences that are issued will become valuable assets.

Now, we know that a lot of the devil in the detail will be in the regulations, but has the Minister received any legal advice for the whole bill but specifically for this part, from section 22 onwards, about the impact of trying to change and tighten harm minimisation in the regulations once these valuable assets have been given to operators? What modelling or advice has she received about the type of lobbying and pressure that will be upon the Government and the regulator, in particular, to keep the regulations narrow or even to narrow them further, and does she accept that it will be really difficult to change the regulations in that environment?

When I turn to clause 27, “Decision on renewal of licence”, the Secretary for Internal Affairs can decide not to renew a licence, but what is the threshold that’s to be applied there? There seems to be silence on that matter. Is the Minister comfortable that in this environment, where there is likely to be intensive lobbying and regulatory capture, the absence of a threshold in statute is safe? Would she either consider telling us for the Hansard what she considers that threshold to be, or even consider putting in an amendment, which we could draft for her?

The other one is that where a licence is not renewed, again, there are questions of transparency: will that information be made public? It seems to me there are many opportunities in Subpart 3 where explicit requirements to make information public would be really helpful in terms of creating social licence for this creation and simultaneous expansion of a regulated market, and so would she consider making those requirements transparent?

Then I look at section 30, “Surrender of licence”, and the secretary can “request the operator to provide any information that the Secretary considers necessary”. That seems to be an unfettered power. It isn’t any reasonable information and it isn’t any information relating to the issue at hand. We would expect a rational secretary to be asking for appropriate information, but in an environment of intense lobbying, that does expose the secretary, potentially, to allegations of bias or impartiality, and so, for the protection of the secretary, perhaps that power could be limited.

We also look at the secretary being able to get outstanding fees. How does she envisage that that is going to happen? If there’s an offshore operator whose licence is not going to be renewed or has been revoked and who owes substantial fees and has benefited substantially from the pockets of Kiwis who don’t have gambling problems and Kiwis who are very vulnerable and do have gambling problems, what is the mechanism for recouping those fees, or does she expect that those will be written off? If they are written off, will there be regular reporting to the public about how much money is not recouped by the secretary in this environment of offshore licences?

10:31

Thank you. I’ll respond, firstly, to Camilla Belich. She had four separate questions; one in relation to Subpart 2, clause 11, having the overview of the licensing process. I just want to make it really clear that that is just an overview and the whole process in the legislation must be followed, which is set out in more detail, subsequently.

The second question was: will there be a fee? That was to do with clause 13(2)(c). Yes, there will be a fee, but that fee will be a part of the regulations. Ultimately, we’ve put in a fee there because if we didn’t have a fee, there is the possibility that people who don’t actually have true ability to be part of the competitive process might vexatiously attempt to apply, and the poor secretariat and staff would be spending a lot of time going through applications that were not actually as valid as you would hope. A fee is there to dissuade those who are not legitimate from being part of the auction.

Question three is: to what extent would the Department of Internal Affairs be checking the validity of the information? It is the role of the regulator to assess the applications.

Question four was: why have we got a part in here talking about how much control someone has over existing licences? Yes, the member is correct. That is for the future allocation of licences.

Camilla Belich also then talked about whether or not we could have publicly available information during the application process for the licence. No, that’s unlikely as a lot of the information that’ll be sent to the Secretary for Internal Affairs should be commercially sensitive and we want to ensure they are having a fair, standard process.

Lawrence Xu-Nan also asked about clause 15(2). That, in part, was to do with—let me just find that here—“not [accepting] an expression of interest from a person if the Secretary considers that doing so is likely to prejudice New Zealand’s international reputation”. That is to ensure that we don’t accept applications from countries that have sanctions against them.

Lawrence Xu-Nan also asked about clause 15(3), I believe, about the honesty of overseas applicants. All applicants’ histories and how they’re evaluated in equivalent jurisdictions will be taken into account.

Ingrid Leary then also asked about the flexibility of regulations and whether or not we needed to have more, I guess, detail in the bill because the regulations might be too flexible. I disagree because, as we’ve been referring to earlier today with some of the concerns from her colleague Camilla Belich about the use of artificial intelligence, having flexible law that allows for modernisation and technological changes, as well as some of the regulations to be updated with the changing dynamics that might happen on social media and the online environment, does require the bill itself to be flexible in nature so that we can adjust to technological developments without needing to go through an entire new Act and law of Parliament. I think that’s just being sensible for the future.

Ingrid Leary also asked about the threshold not to renew a licence. Licence holders must meet the requirements of a licence to be able to get a renewal. If they no longer hold a licence, it will be known that they no longer hold one, as they won’t be on the register. There are provisions for review of any decisions made by the secretary, because I know she was concerned about whether or not the secretary might end up being a bit dodgy—I find that less concerning for the future—but the operators will also be able to appeal some of the decisions through the High Court if necessary.

10:35

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks, Minister, for going through all the replies to the questions. I do have some questions that relate to Subpart 2, clause 19, “Criteria for granting licence”, because I have a group of Amendment Papers that make some suggestions on subclause (3)(b).

In terms of the licences that will be granted, Minister, you’ve talked about process and criteria. One of the things I do want to put on record, and for those that are at home listening, is that these are overseas companies, and there’s an assumption that they actually understand Kiwis. I’d have to question that, because we won’t, in terms of the public, know about who actually will be successful in getting licences, what background they will bring—sure, they’ll meet all the economic, paying-tax, and meeting-levy, obligations—and what actual relationship they will have with Kiwis in terms of our consumers.

You’ve also talked about, Minister, the flexibility and modernisation of the bill. One of the things we heard very strongly through the select committee process was: why so many licences? Why 15? Why couldn’t there be a trial period with maybe three licences or five licences so that there’s a testing of the market in terms of this bill? I’d like to know what advice the Minister received with regard to the number of licences. I do recall that there was a formula in terms of Inland Revenue information that was provided to the select committee, but why did the Minister land on 15? What was the formula used for that?

In my Amendment Papers asking for consideration of a reduction—through the select committee process, we heard many submitters talk about why and how you got to 15; why couldn’t there be a trial period? Will there be a review? I understand that, but in terms of gambling harm minimisation and in terms of putting New Zealanders through a number of risks, this bill, in our view, just does not go far enough to protect Kiwi consumers. I’d like to ask the Minister that question.

You have stated that there will be very limited information in the public arena because it’s commercially sensitive, so even though the bill will be passed, probably, this year—in terms of the timeline of that, when will the public know what decisions are being made, and will there be further processes where the public can question the Secretary for Internal Affairs in their role?

Look, before we move on, I’m just starting to hear repetition. I’m encouraging members to bring up new material. Thank you.

10:38

Thank you, Madam Chair. Moving on to Subpart 3, the “Renewal, suspension, cancellation, and surrender of licences”, I just want to check with the Minister in terms of the interaction between a few of these areas, noting that if you’re looking at clause 29—which I know that my colleague Mike Davidson has an Amendment Paper on—clause 35 detailed one pathway for an operator who’s had their licence suspended or cancelled to challenge that decision via the High Court, but, usually, there’s a step before that, in some instances, where, within the organisation itself, there is the ability to review a particular decision or a review board that, potentially, may look at that decision as well. I want to check with the Minister if, unless I missed it in the bill, that’s an option that’s available to operators who are having their licence suspended or cancelled, rather than going directly to the High Court or through a judicial review as a particular resolution. The reason I ask this question is that, clearly, there is an option or pathway being laid out in terms of clauses 32 and 33, but that’s in relation to, specifically, the addition or the changes being made regarding further conditions to the licence, but it doesn’t specify in terms of the suspension or cancellation. That’s my very discrete question that I have right now.

10:40

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will respond to the questions from Lemauga Lydia Sosene, who questioned why we’ve landed at a cap of up to 15 licences for the online gambling market. Look, when the cap of 15 licences was set, the Inland Revenue gambling duty data already showed a highly concentrated market. While more than 15 offshore operators paid gambling duty, the vast majority of revenue was generated by the top 15 operators. Similar patterns were reflected in the 12 months to 30 June 2025, where 26 operators paid the duty, but the top 15 accounted for 99.8 percent of the total revenue. Capping the number of licences at up to 15 for the first licensing period is expected to limit the total regulatory cost, but it also provides a good base for testing whether the settings are working and whether consumers do migrate from an unlicensed operator to a licensed market.

We had further questions from Lemauga Lydia Sosene about how the overseas operators will be relevant to New Zealand. Well, it will be up to the companies themselves to be relevant to the consumers here in New Zealand, because if they’re not relevant to consumers here in New Zealand, New Zealanders may not choose to use them, and so that’s just business.

She also asked about the timelines for the bill. The bill will come into force from 1 May this year. At this point, there will be prohibition on advertising unlicensed online casino gambling. Providers already offering online casino gambling in New Zealand may continue their existing operations until 1 December, but on 1 December, online casino gambling providers will be required to cease conducting online casino gambling if they have not applied for a licence. On 1 January 2027, amendments made to increase the online gambling duty in the Gaming Duties Act from 12 percent to 16 percent will come into force.

We also had questions and queries from Lawrence Xu-Nan about Subpart 3, regarding challenges through the High Court of a licence cancellation. Yes, operators can request a review by the Secretary for Internal Affairs—that is in clause 32(1)—and it can also be judicially reviewed. I believe that is everything for now.

10:43

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to the Minister for her engagement in this committee stage. I just had a couple of follow-up questions, and then I want to talk about the competitive process—which I don’t believe has been covered yet—and the process of applying for a licence.

This has come up a few times, and the Minister has said that the regulations have been released through a proactive Cabinet paper release, but the question I specifically had was what the fee was. Is an actual copy of the exact regulations that will be in force available now publicly, because the question I had related to what would be in that process? Additionally, she said that matters would not be released if they are commercially sensitive, and so for matters that are not commercially sensitive, I would expect—and it would be good to have her clarification—that information would be available to be obtained by the public under the Official Information Act. I ask if she could confirm that in relation to the application to be part of the competitive process.

But I did want to move on. My colleague has covered clause 15. I did have a question on that, but I won’t ask that. I’ll move on to clause 16, which is about the competitive process, and so that’s once everyone has gone through the process of ascertaining whether they’re able to participate, then the Secretary for Internal Affairs will hold a competitive process.

I did want to additionally mention this, though. The Minister has made a few comments around whether staff have the appropriate skills and capability, and I wanted to assure the Minister—and I’m sure I speak for those on this side of the Chamber—that those questions are meant to be about us, as the Opposition, ensuring that the key steps in relation to the funding and expertise are available. It’s not a reflection at all on the existing, very competent staff that work in the Department of Internal Affairs.

The question I have in relation to clause 16 is, again, a question around the amount payable for the licence—that is in clause 16(1)(b), and that is once the competitive process has been decided. Now, the competitive process clause is a clause that does have a certain amount of leeway for the secretary to determine what it could be—it says here, “(for example, an auction or a tender);”. Are those the only two examples that she can think of for how the secretary would run that competitive process? Are there other methods of running that competitive process in addition to an auction or a tender? If there are not, then perhaps this could be worded as an exhaustive list rather than an example, but I do wonder what that competitive process will be.

Then we move on to clause 16(2)(b), and it’s also available for the secretary to determine how that process will be run. I did want to know if the Minister would be informed of this, especially the first time that it occurs, and the decisions that the secretary may make in relation to whether, if it is an auction or if it is a tender, how indeed that competitive process will be run. I wondered if the Minister had, in fact, had those discussions with the secretary and whether she would be able to inform the committee of the nature of that competitive process, because that is quite key in relation to how this will be run.

Additionally, I had a question around clause 16(1)(b) about the amount payable, and I also have a question around clause 16(4)(b), which requires another fee process. There are quite a few different fees that apply here, and additionally in that process, where, as the Governance and Administration Committee has said, some part of the amount of that licence should be retained if they withdraw their application. I did ask the Minister whether she had requested any money in a Budget bid, and she indicated that she had not because it would be self-funding. But because this is the first time we’ve done that, there will be some set-up costs, and so is the Minister saying that there will be no additional provision made to the Department of Internal Affairs prior to this scheme being paid for through levies—is that what she is telling the committee today?

There are a few questions around that. I do have some further questions around once the licence is actually put forward, which I think will be important to get answers to.

10:47

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a very quick question for the Minister, picking up on something that she provided to the committee, which was her response that she had considered other organisations to be the main body Government agency apart from the Department of Internal Affairs. I’d like to understand which agencies or Government departments in particular she considered and whether the Ministry of Health or some part of the public health system was included, including the Ministry of Health.

I say that referring to a Budget-sensitive document that was furnished from the Minister for Mental Health on 24 September 2024, where, in the drafting of their strategy around gambling harm, that was done before the bill was introduced into the House. In point 25, it says, “The strategy also acknowledges the growth in online gambling and the Government’s recent decision to regulate online offshore casino gambling through a licensing system expected to take effect in early 2026.” That tells me that the strategic framework set up in here, which is all about increasing access to gambling harm support, growing the gambling harm workforce—all of that stuff was done after the decision to regulate the system.

My question is: was Health considered as one of the alternative organisations that could have been the main body to regulate this, and, if it wasn’t, what lines of communication and reporting, and so on, does she see between the Ministry of Health and the Department of Internal Affairs? This relates to questions also around whether the harm minimisation strategies will be shared with Health officials, and also whether the data and monitoring that is done in the sections that set up consumer protections will be shared with health officials in a way where harm minimisation can be effectively tracked. Just quick questions on that, and it would be really helpful to get the Minister’s response.

10:50

I will just touch on a couple of questions that came from Camilla Belich about public details on the regulations. Look, only the policy proposals have been released. I did mention last night, I believe, that drafting instructions can’t be shared, but the Cabinet decisions have been shared proactively. I also referred to the fact that it still needs to go back through Cabinet in May.

Camilla Belich also asked about what other options we used for competitive processes. Ultimately, Cabinet decided on an auction. That provides for a competitive process to determine who may apply for a licence.

10:51

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s amendment to clause 8, as set out on Amendment Paper 534, be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to insert new clause 8A, as set out on Amendment Paper 556, be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s amendment to clause 10, as set out on Amendment Paper 535, be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 10, as set out on Amendment Paper 544, be agreed to.

The question is that Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 10 be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to clauses 10 and 18, as set out on Amendment Paper 543, be agreed to.

The question is that Tamatha Paul’s amendments to clauses 13 and 15, as set out on Amendment Paper 507, be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 19, as set out on Amendment Paper 545, be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendments to clause 19, as set out on Amendment Paper 546, be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendment to clause 19(3)(a), replacing “15” with “5”, be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendment to clause 19(3)(a), replacing “15” with “8”, be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendment to clause 19(3)(a), replacing “15” with “10”, be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendment to clause 19(3)(a), replacing “15” with “12”, be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendment to clause 19(3)(b), replacing “3” with “1”, be agreed to.

11:06

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will turn straight to clause 37, which is the duty to ensure the gambling platform is operating and available. My question to the Minister here is that given all her assurances that she is committed to harm minimisation, why do we only have things to do with the availability of a commencement of a licence within 90 days or ensuring that the gaming platform is operating and available for at least 270 days per year, and absolute silence on minimum mandatory duties?

For example, did she consider inserting mandatory loss limits into that provision? It would seem to be an eminently sensible minimum duty and requirement that if somebody had lost a significant amount of money online, the operator would provide an assurance that they would not be exposed to further opportunities to gamble. Did she consider cooling-off periods? If somebody has been gambling online for hours on end, wouldn’t that be a good trigger for an operator to have positive duty of care towards them? What about pre-commitment systems?

I note that through this whole subpart, it talks about consumer protection, but it’s very much about the willingness of the operator recognising and responding to harmful gambling, rather than it having a positive duty of care to people, and does the Minister accept that there is a conflict of interest in the operator having that role? Why didn’t she put in minimum mandatory duties? She could still regulate, as she has said previously, to prescribe what they are, but having the duty bound in legislation would be a real indicator of a genuine commitment to harm minimisation under clause 37.

11:08

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have a number of amendments to this part and I just want to talk to a couple in a moment, and maybe then I’ll talk to some others a little bit later on. The first one is Amendment Paper 547, and it’s around increasing the minimum age from 18 to 20. I’m just wondering what advice the Minister did get on setting it at 18, which is at odds with land-based casinos, where it’s 20 years. It does seem a little bit strange that we would allow an easier form of gambling, where it’s on your phone or on your computer in your home for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to be available to 18-year-olds. I ask whether there has there been any advice on the actual long-term harm when we enable 18-year-olds to gamble.

Also, in relation to that, is my other Amendment Paper, Amendment Paper 548, on the use of the term “take all reasonable steps”, which features in clauses 38, 39, 40, and 44. It feels like it’s very weak language. We only have to look at the e-scooter hireage that you see around, which is meant to be limited to over-18s, and the number of younger children who appear to be a lot younger than 18 on those e-scooters—often, many of them on one scooter at a time. I would be guessing that those companies have to take all reasonable steps, and so I would like to know from the Minister what the definition of “all reasonable steps” is, and what advice did they get around that. Actually, would it not be better just to remove those words altogether and just ensure that the operator makes certain that any person that uses online gambling platforms is 18 years old?

11:10

Thanks, Mr Chair. I appreciate the ability to provide a contribution. I have questions with regards to Part 3, clause 37, “Ensure gambling platform is operating and available”, and I do have an Amendment Paper submitted. In particular, it’s with regards to gambling platforms and their hours of operation, and there should be some limitations around that. What I wanted to ask the Minister is: what was the conversation in terms of getting to that specific provision when it is operating and available? Look, I appreciate that it’s an online platform, which is going to be available 24/7. However, through the Department of Internal Affairs, did they give advice in terms of operating hours specific to when young people sleep, are awake, and the activities that they do, to minimise the risk of online gambling?

We heard through the select committee process that there should be restricted limitations on what is available. I appreciate that it’s a 24/7 platform. However, if we are wanting to reduce harm and minimise the harm and protect our consumers, there should be some strong recommendations. I’m wanting to just check with Minister: were those sorts of cases looked at, and what questions did she ask, and what advice did officials give in terms of these licences that are going to come in and do their thing, because there is not the strong requirement that they need to be based in New Zealand? We don’t want to guess what those provisions will be like in terms of limitations.

I go back to some of the submissions specific to kaupapa Māori—their concerns in terms of were there conversations with various specialists. We also heard from the Problem Gambling Foundation to do with consumer protections and their worries or their concerns—their strong concerns—as to how these provisions being put forward, how specific the protections will be for our consumers that are here, and, in particular, vulnerable communities, plus those under 18, who will be exposed to the advertising in the provisions that are provided in the bill.

In terms of Internal Affairs, how far-reaching were their—when they viewed the submissions. In terms of what the select committee process was, we had a number of submissions raise a concern around vulnerable communities. The Problem Gambling Foundation, which I heard at the Petitions Committee, raised concern and questions around viability and, in terms of consumer protections, what that will actually mean and how it will be spelt out. The bill has outlined in this provision that the gambling platform is operating and available. Well, when will it be unavailable, and how will our vulnerable communities be protected? I want to ask the Minister those questions.

11:13

Thank you, Mr Chair. My questions are specifically about clause 69(4) and (5). When I look at clause 69(4)(a), it talks about how “The Secretary must give the person to whom the complaint relates a reasonable opportunity to make written comments”. What I’d like to know from the Minister, first of all, is what a reasonable opportunity would look like. I’m not at all sure what that looks like in the—

Can you repeat that clause again?

It’s clause 69(4)(a). Am I in the right—

That’s Part 4. We’re in Part 3.

Thank you—sorry.

11:14

Thank you. I do have some questions. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to ask any in relation to Subparts 3 and 4 in the previous section, but on to Part 3 now. I wanted to ask, in clause 38, what the steps are in relation to verification that will need to be taken.

I wanted to ask, in relation to clause 39, in relation to compliance with the regulations, what will the procedures be that are set out in the regulations to comply with 39 to minimise online harm.

I wanted to ask about the timing of the exclusion register in clause 40. This is a very important point. This was raised also in select committee. Will the self-exclusion register be available at the time that the main bill comes into effect? We’ve heard that self-exclusion is an incredibly effective form of enabling and empowering for those who have recognised gambling problems to ensure that they are not able to participate in gambling when they themselves do not wish for this to occur, so the timing of that is incredibly important.

I wanted to ask, in relation to clause 41, about the registration icon and the nature of this registration icon and why, in fact, it is required that an operator play the registration audio mark, which is another thing. What is the registration audio mark? Will this be, for example, “This online gambling provider is regulated by the Department of Internal Affairs”? Is that what a registration audio mark is? If that is in fact the case, similar to maybe ads you might hear overseas—or I guess when you have a situation where we have to authenticate or include the address on political advertising—will it be that every advertising piece that is put forward by online casino gamblers is then linked to the Department of Internal Affairs? I’m just interested, if that’s what the effect of this will be, in how Internal Affairs will ensure that under clause 41(3), all of that information is then, if the registration lapses, taken down within 24 hours.

I mean, that seems to be an extraordinary requirement, if there is no longer a licence, for that to be taken down within that period of time, considering that could have been shared quite openly around the internet. I wondered, in that case, whether it might be prudent to include a date, as at the date of a certain point in time or registered to a certain point in time—if that was considered at all.

The other question I had was in relation to clause 42. This states that there can’t be any credit for online casino gambling. Now, I imagine that’s credit—if a particular provider wanted to say, “Please come and gamble with our online provider and we’ll give you 20 bucks to start you off.”, that would be prohibited. But what I want to know is: will this also cover a situation where someone is able to, say, put in their own money, do a bit of gambling, and win a credit? Is that going to be possible under this section? I wanted to know whether that’s actually covered by that.

There’s quite a few questions under that first part. I do have some further questions after clause 43 on information collection and retention, but I’ll see if the Minister can respond to those.

11:18

Thank you, Mr Chair. I will rise to take a call and respond to a number of the concerns and questions.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene, firstly, asked about limitations on the hours that should be available. Look, the bill itself aims to provide choice for consumers so that they can gamble in a safer, regulated market. Offshore operators currently are available 24/7. This ensures that consumers are not channelled into the black market by too much restriction on the regulations that we put in place as a Government. Ultimately, if things are not going to be available at the time that the consumer wants them to be available, there is a higher likelihood people may just choose to use the black market.

There’s been a question from Mike Davidson about why it is that we need to take all reasonable steps. I think, in some ways, this is aligned to the question that Camilla Belich had about steps for age and the age of 18. Look, taking all reasonable steps is a standard drafting procedure in placing obligations on regulated parties to take all reasonable steps to meet an obligation. Some events may be outside the regulated party’s controls; but, also, in response to Camilla Belich about age, there is an offence in the bill to gamble on behalf of a person under 18, and the operator must ensure that people using their platforms are over the age of 18. So those things, I think, are quite linked.

Mike Davidson also then queried age limit, in terms of why it is 18 and not 20 years old to align with land-based casinos. The true answer to this is that TAB, Lotto Instant Kiwi products, and gambling on pokies in clubs and pubs across New Zealand have an age limit of 18 rather than 20. Yes, there is an age limit of 20 to go into casinos in New Zealand; however, the age limit for land-based casinos was set in the Gambling Act a long time ago to align with what was previously the legal age for purchasing and consuming alcohol, and it hasn’t changed as the requirements for alcohol purchase have dropped. So there’s possibly a potential change that some other Minister might wish to do in the future for alignment. I’m not so fussed on that, so I see more of an argument for 18.

Ingrid Leary also asked about platforms and why they must operate within 90 days. That’s to ensure that operators are not banking their licences but they are actually using them, because it’s a possibility that someone takes a licence away from a competitor in an anti-competitive move, but doesn’t actually choose to use it if they have multiple licences. So the regulations include limits on operating, in that respect.

There is a question from Lemauga Lydia Sosene about specific protections in the law. Once again, these are fleshed out in more detail in the regulations around harm and consumer protections.

Camilla Belich did ask a question about the self-exclusion register. The self-exclusion register regulations need to be implemented by December 2027, because officials are currently working on this as it was a later edition, and so it won’t necessarily be ready when the bill passes; however, I would just suggest that, under the current status quo, there is no exclusion register. There is a completely unregulated market, and so having this regulation come into a force one year later is better than the status quo. Yes, in a theoretical world, it would be nice to have everything come into force at the exact same time; however, like I suggest, it was a later addition to the law.

There is also a question from Camilla Belich about the registration audio mark. The secretary is developing guidance on the registration icon. Whether this will be linked to a website is yet to be determined, but the icon itself will be published by public notice, so people will know what it is, and that, in some ways, just allows people to know that what they’re hearing is actually a licensed provider. Camilla also asked, “Will free credit be available if the money is not to be paid back?” That is not credit. Otherwise, no credit is allowed to be offered under the law.

11:23

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to thank the Minister of Internal Affairs for answering so many of the questions. Just to point out that my question around clause 37 was not about the 90 days; it was about the minimum mandatory duties, and I’d really welcome a response to that. Also, I’d just ask if the Minister wouldn’t mind pronouncing my colleague’s name correctly. It’s quite difficult hearing it mispronounced all the time. I believe it’s “Lemauga Lydia Sosene”. If that could be afforded to my colleague, that would be really great.

My question is specifically in relation to clause 40, about excluding certain persons. We’ve already talked about taking reasonable steps, but my question is about the words “is excluded from gambling on its gambling platform”. The question I have is around: what resources or requirements will operators have to actively monitor compliance with harm minimisation obligations across multiple platforms? The bill seems to be silent on this, and we know the reality of gambling harm is that many people will spend hours on one platform and then maybe transfer to another. We have these consumer protections that are not really harm minimisation provisions, but there doesn’t seem to be a requirement for a licensed operator to have any understanding of what the harmful habits are of somebody who is going across multiple platforms. Equally, what resourcing or ability will the Secretary for Internal Affairs have to be able to monitor behaviours that show online gambling operators with licences allowing people to go across multiple platforms endlessly, causing harm to themselves, when the bill appears to be silent on that?

I wonder if the solution—well, part of the problem is because it talks about operators only, and if we go to the definition section, there was an opportunity to extend operators so that it would look at the whole ecosystem—so that’s payment providers, affiliate marketers, software providers. I would ask the Minister to consider an amendment, which we would be happy to write for her, in clause 40, that would simply—if we extended it from “operators” to others in the ecosystem and somehow found words to do that, that would then resolve the very real problem of these people who will be harmed by gambling across multiple online platforms. The alternative scenario would be to change the word “operators” in the definition section or to extend it there.

So I’m wondering if the Minister would provide answers to how we’re going to reduce the harm in that respect, and whether she would consider changing the bill to be able to take into account that very real problem-gambling scenario.

11:26

Thank you, Mr Chair, and my call will be very quick, because it’s just one point. It was actually in relation to a matter that was raised earlier, around clause 42. I guess it’s very clear that it’s quite a vague clause, because it doesn’t quite lay out what they’re talking about when they mention “credit”. I have Amendment Paper 549 that just, I guess, removes a little bit of that doubt that actually expands on what they’re talking about. So it’s: “For the avoidance of doubt, this includes buy now, pay later services, credit cards, and any other deferred payment methods.” I actually think it’s quite a good amendment that actually can help this bill just to avoid any of that doubt that is created from clause 42, where it just talks about providing “credit”. I’m just wondering whether the Minister of Internal Affairs would consider supporting that amendment.

11:27

Thank you, Mr Chair, and to the Minister of Internal Affairs. I do have some questions with clause 46, and I do have an Amendment Paper 536. The complaints register that is listed in the bill will be a very important tool, being a new system coming into Aotearoa, in terms of the licences—or up to 15 licences. It’s going to be quite a large operation. My Amendment Paper speaks about the requirement, because some of the language that is used in specifically clause 46(5), it talks about just the different requirements that the operator will have to do in terms of their licence, in terms of their operations—periodic information provided to the Department of Internal Affairs or the Secretary for Internal Affairs specifically around the number of complaints. Being a whole new system, and it’s going to probably have a runway of about a couple of years—two to three years before a review is held—it will be important that the public will be able to have a look at the licensing system and who’s complaining about it.

My Amendment Paper talks about specific explicit information with regards to publishing the information online and recognising that, with a new system, it will take time to bed in. Specifically, when there will be complaints, where do the public go to view the information? Also, the operator will have, as set out, regulations or requirements to do all of those things. The public—there is an assumption that the public may not be interested; however, I would have to argue against that: there will be interest around who the licensees are, the successful licensees, how many platforms do they have, what is working well, what is not working well. How does the public access that information? My Amendment Paper speaks about informing and educating the public as to what site do they go to, where do they find that information, directory, etc., because although we assume that there may not be complaints, there may be specific complaints—for example, a person goes on to a site, doesn’t find the information, or may have won a prize, and then they may come across the problem of “How do I get that prize?”.

One of the things that the submitter the Problem Gambling Foundation raised in their oral submission was that the system will be set up, but if you cannot find good information on the internet that’s publicly available, how will the public—particularly those who work in the space around consumer protections, around harm minimisation—get to know information that is publicly, widely available rather than having to contact the regulator all the time? The New Zealand public will want to see the specific information around operators and the licensees, and especially if they don’t have to be domiciled in Aotearoa. So the protections, the education information—how will people know their complaints have been received? “Where do I go? Is it readily accessible?”—that’s what I’m interested in, Minister.

11:31

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, firstly to the comment by Ingrid Leary: as a person who also doesn’t have an English name, I totally understand when your name gets butchered, so I apologise if I’ve been doing that inadvertently and not realising. So thank you for bringing that to my attention.

To the question that Ingrid Leary actually did have about minimum mandatory duties, there is a requirement for operators to minimise harm and that is provided for throughout the regulations. Harm minimisation strategies will show how operators will minimise harm to consumers and that must be provided as part of the application process. Consumers can also block transactions with gambling operators via their own banks, and that liability should lie with operators, so that is why it is included like that in the definition and not through other industry organisations or the tech companies themselves.

Mike Davidson had a question in relation to his Amendment Paper 549 about credit. Look, the clause that’s in the bill is modelled off the Gambling Act, and it’s very clear that no credit must be offered by operators, regardless of the type of credit. Credit sourced by consumers, such as credit cards, will actually be restricted through the regulations, so his amendment is not necessary.

There’s another question about the Amendment Paper from Lemauga Lydia Sosene about whether the Secretary for Internal Affairs must publish information on complaints from operators. Consumers can raise complaints directly to the secretary. There are reporting and auditing requirements that will be set in the regulation, but nothing in the bill prevents the secretary from publishing information on complaints. So I don’t think the amendment is necessary.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene also had a question about the complaints process in the register—and just alluding more to that, Cabinet has approved details to be set out in the regulations about the complaints through the process and through the register.

Camilla Belich.

Mr Chair!

11:33

Too late.

You were loud but slow to your feet.

Yeah, he’s at a disadvantage because he’s so tall.

Anyway, I do have some questions in relation to three areas, and one I won’t focus on as much because it has been touched on by some other colleagues, but I do have a question in relation to complaints, which I don’t think has been covered.

So the three areas I want to cover are covered in clauses 43 to 49. Essentially, these clauses cover changes to a person with a significant influence, changes to key officers, and complaints. The point that I just wanted to make about complaints—because I appreciate that that has been addressed—is that there are significant requirements, as has already been discussed, in relation to individual providers to deal with complaints. There is, I note, in clause 46(5), a requirement for the secretary to require an operator to provide them with information on complaints. But what I wanted to know is: was there any thought given or will there be a separate requirement for the secretary to have its own complaints register, to be able to ensure that these online casino gambling companies are actually complying with what they need to be doing under this Act, so that that can be direct rather than through the complaints procedure of the individual entities which are registered? I think I’d appreciate the Minister’s guidance on that. It might be that that’s addressed in the regulations, but I’d appreciate that.

The other question I wanted to ask is about the process that would be put in place when there—I’m just wondering if my timing [Member checks the Speaker’s clock]. Oh, there we are. It’s like it was the longest minute of my life.

And mine!

Thanks, Tim. Always count on you for support. The question I have around the continuation is obvious—and I think these are good provisions to have in place in the bill. It is to make sure that when there’s, essentially, a change of ownership or a change of person who has significant influence over the entity which is regulated, the secretary is informed of that; also, if there are changes to key officers, the same tests that we talked about in earlier provisions are applied to those new key officers. But the question I have is: when there are these significant changes, will that operator be allowed to continue to operate despite the fact that some of the very thorough pre-registration—or even pre-registration of interest to participate in the auction—tests may not have been able to be conducted with the people who are either remaining there or if other people are there? I think that is important in terms of the ability for New Zealanders to have confidence. It appears to me that they are able to continue to operate, but I wondered if the Minister would consider that if some of these key officers or people with influence changed before the due diligence is able to be undertaken, there would be able to be a pause in operation for those entities until the secretary can be satisfied that the same standards of accountability and information checks—you know, important things like criminal record checks—have been undertaken with the new change of circumstances.

I think these are prudent provisions to have in a bill, but I just wonder whether they go far enough and whether there could be the opportunity for an actor which we would not provide a licence to being able to have influence while an online gambling provider is able to operate.

11:38

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I know that my colleague Camilla Belich does have further questions; I just haven’t heard an answer from the Minister in relation to how monitoring and compliance will occur for operators, to ensure people don’t spend hours gambling across multiple platforms—or is she comfortable with the fact that the bill is silent on that? Just a quick question, but I know my colleague has further questions.

Well, it's a difficult situation to be in because we have had important questions that haven’t been answered in this part. I’d like to give the Minister the opportunity to answer those questions, or some assurance that these may be able to be addressed in a latter part of the debate. I do think, as I’ve said, that these are sections that generally seem quite prudent, but making sure that they operate in a way which is responsible would also be important to hear from the Minister on.

11:39

Thank you, Mr Chair. Speaking to some of the questions from Camilla Belich: firstly, she asked whether or not there would be a separate requirement for complaints to the Secretary for Internal Affairs. Section 68 sets out the process for complaints to the secretary. There was also a question about significant influence, and the bill also suggests that there must be all reasonable steps taken to ensure that an operator or a person doesn’t have significant influence over more than three licences. If they fail to do so, they will be in breach of requirements.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 37(4) be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendments to clause 38 as set out on Amendment Paper 547 be agreed to.

Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment to clause 38 is out of order as being the same in substance as a previous amendment.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendments to clauses 38, 39, and 40 as set out on Amendment Paper 548 be agreed to.

Mike Davidson’s amendments to clause 41 as set out on Amendment Paper 543 are ruled out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 42 as set out on Amendment Paper 549 be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 44 as set out on Amendment Paper 550 be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s amendment to clause 46 as set out on Amendment Paper 536 be agreed to.

11:47

Thank you, Mr Chair. We’ll have a lot of questions on this part because this is where the rubber really hits the road in terms of the Minister being able to demonstrate to us how the regulating of offshore entities with no real vested interest in New Zealand—who are difficult to reach and manage—are going to be able to be made to comply with the bill, how the enforcement provisions will work, and how the regulatory provisions will work as well. I know there will be many questions regarding why such important matters around harm minimisation and advertising, in particular, are relegated to regulations.

I’d like to just mention an overview of this part for those who are listening at home. This really puts a stronger enforcement emphasis on protecting the market from unlicensed regulators, and it does not really speak to gambling harm, apart from relegating the harm minimisation enforcement measures into regulation.

My questions, really, for all of this part, but particularly around the enforceable undertakings in clause 52, are these: what evidence does the Minister have that Part 4 will actually deter unlicensed operators from operating in New Zealand, given all the enforcement issues? What additional resources will the regulator have to monitor compliance across multiple international gambling online platforms?

She has already said that she has not done an additional Budget bid, and there are real issues that we still haven’t heard answers to in relation to people who gamble across multiple platforms and operators who operate across multiple platforms. There is a gaping hole in our knowledge around how that is going to be managed, and so I’d really like to know this from the Minister. This is her opportunity to answer the previous questions but also to answer in relation to the enforceable undertakings and the meaning of “civil liberty act” in clauses 52 and 50. What additional resources does she see that the regulator will have, and where will those resources come from?

The really critical question that I have for clause 52, “Enforceable undertakings”—it also does go into further clauses which we can ask about later to do with individuals and offences—is what enforcement mechanism is linked to measurable increases in gambling harm, or are enforcement powers limited to regulatory breaches? All morning, I have been asking the Minister, and colleagues have been interrogating the Minister, about which parts of this bill meet the purpose statement in clause 3 that talks about harm minimisation. And we are yet to hear any answers that adequately satisfy us that the bill does what it says it’s going to do on the tin. Where it says that is clause 3, and all throughout the answers, we have not heard anything about harm minimisation.

So what enforcement mechanism is linked to that, and how will that be able to proceed in terms of information flows, anonymised gambling patterns, and data from operators or from the Secretary for Internal Affairs over to health officials to monitor the harm so that regulations can be tweaked and altered in response to that? All throughout the questions last night and today, we have not heard an answer to that question, so I’d really like the Minister to respond now, and I know that colleagues will have a lot of questions relating to how enforceable this bill actually is.

11:51

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have some questions with regards to clause 51 of Part 4, “Formal warnings”. In the bill, it talks about that process where a person is issued with a formal warning if the secretary is satisfied that the person has carried out a civil liability act.

One of the questions I want to ask—well, I’ve got a couple of questions—is with regards to the assumptions that have been made in accordance with the idea that everyone across New Zealand speaks English and understands English. The reason why I raise that is to do with the formal warning, which I assume is going to be in the English language. We heard a number of submitters that are not necessarily born in New Zealand and speak another language, either te reo or a Pacific language or Chinese or Indian. The reason why I ask this question, which may be quite a small question, or perhaps not relevant, is that we heard from those specific groups who lodged their submissions, and they spoke to them in the oral submissions to select committee members. With regards to online casino gambling and the harm that it causes, they spoke about some of the misunderstandings with regards to the written language and the symbols that you see in an online platform.

So it may not be relevant to the Minister that she has received some advice from the secretary or officials, but how will that transpire when this provision talks about formal warnings? There’s an assumption that people across New Zealand have an excellent command of English, both verbal and written, but I can tell you now that there have been some challenges in terms of people understanding a notice or a formal warning, because it’s actually quite different for people who are born outside New Zealand. I’ve just had a quick look at our census data. In 2023, we had, across Aotearoa New Zealand now, just under 2 million who fit in that category.

I specifically raise this because a number of submitters were from vulnerable communities. So whilst this is a completely different query, I am interested in (a) whether there was any advice given by the Secretary for Internal Affairs to the Minister; and (b) in terms of the system, there’s a strong assumption that the methodology will be reasonable and practical, and that people who are gamblers will understand what they’re doing—well, I would have to raise those questions to the Minister. It would be helpful for the Minister to outline that; it may not have come in the remit. But I am interested, because we had a number of submitters that came through about how online casino gambling is quite harmful to their communities, and, in particular, I raise again our young people under 18—some are born outside this country—and I’m very interested to hear from the Minister.

11:55

Thank you, Mr Chair. First, speaking to the queries that came from Ingrid Leary talking about the enforcement focus, I guess, within this part, focusing on the market and not necessarily on harm minimisation. Those things are still to come in further parts, so don’t be too concerned. There was also a query about the Budget and not going for Budget bids into the future asking for more money. That’s because there will be a levy on the company, so it is cost-recovered, and the levy itself can be adjusted in regulations. So the bill itself does provide for a range of enforcement tools to ensure that the regime is effective. They’re all listed here; there’s take-down notices, formal warnings, enforceable undertakings, pecuniary penalties of up to $5 million, and licence cancellations where operators fail to comply. The law will also allow extra-territorial application to enable the enforcement of these tools cross-border.

The provisions also allow for the secretary to require information that supports the regulatory functions and to share information and respond to requests from overseas regulators, where confidentiality and privacy protections are in place. Further to the question of which provisions in the bill actually do talk about harm, a lot of that is within the regulations themselves. The bill is intentionally set at a high level to ensure that the operational details can be covered in the regulations, and like we spoke about in the previous part—and I think potentially the part even before that—it’s intentionally designed so that that can change with technological innovation and changes over time so that we don’t have to go through and change the entire law again following technological progress.

Lemauga Lydia Sosene was asking about formal warnings and information in languages. Formal warnings are to be made to operators. That will be part of the law. Operators will be conducting their business in English. The languages for consumers is an interesting point, because Cabinet has agreed that operators must provide information and services in languages commonly spoken in New Zealand.

11:57

Thank you. I want to ask about the take-down notice regime. First of all, I was interested to see whether this regime is similar to other regimes in terms of take-down notices. So I’m asking specifically about clause 59 and the reliance on an order—so there’s a failure in the process if someone doesn’t take it down and it ends up at the High Court. My concern there is really a practical one. The High Court is expensive and it is overrun at the present time. So I’m worried about the speed of a take-down in that situation, because we’ve already been through quite a process by that point, and then we are in a situation where we have to wait for a time in the High Court. I’d like the Minister to comment on what the practicalities of that process would be—would there be a possibility for urgency, because it doesn’t look like it to me, or some sort of injunctive process, etc.? But it’s more a case of just speeding up the end result of being able to take it down, given so much harm is done on the way.

Then I wanted to know about the extra-territorial nature of that, because often you would be having these things coming in from overseas and there would be an issue about taking down in other places in the world. Is that what the Minister is saying would happen also in the High Court—that insistence at that point—in which case, how does that work with service in terms of an overseas operator? I’d be grateful for your answers.

11:59

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s good to take my first call in Part 4. When I look at the substantive parts of Part 4, essentially what is being set out is a regime of civil liability, and the Minister just in her previous answer outlined all of the different civil liabilities that could occur, including the pecuniary penalty, as she stated, which for a company, not a person, is quite high at $5 million. There is, additionally, in Part 4, an offence—and the only criminal offence in this bill is the fact of knowingly or recklessly allowing someone under the age of 18 to actually participate in online gambling. That is the only criminal offence in this particular part that we’re looking at at the moment. The rest of the offences, which are outlined in clause 50, can be quite serious: breaching all of the rules in relation to conduct, breaching advertising rules, failing to display registrations—maybe that’s not as serious. Providing credit is very serious. That is potentially very much at odds with the objective of the bill.

What I was wondering is: is it appropriate to simply have one criminal offence, in clause 66? The other offences against this bill that result in civil liability—and some of those instances may or may not be as serious; I don’t want to undermine the importance of making sure that our children don’t participate in online gambling, as outlined in clause 66—are still serious and could significantly undermine the regime. The point, I think, is why do we have to then wait for the High Court to make an order, and why is the initial step in relation to enforceable undertakings and formal warnings very, very minor in terms of the potential breaches that could be in place?

I just wondered if the regulatory regime in relation to compliance and enforcement lacked teeth and lacked, perhaps, the resources and speed. I think that’s what Helen White was alluding to in terms of the time period that it takes to go to the High Court, and actually get an order to get some of these stopped may be a very long time. If these were criminal offences, obviously it wouldn’t be up to the Secretary for Internal Affairs to take all those enforcement steps in order to make sure that everything was being complied with. Those are my questions in relation to clauses 50 to 66, which others have already mentioned, and there might be some more details in there, too.

I did have some more questions around the complaints to the secretary, too, though. We did touch on this briefly earlier, in the previous part, when we looked at the fact that individual organisations who are regulated by this bill would have to have a complaints register. Additionally, as foreshadowed, there is a complaints register to the secretary as well. That is also a significant undertaking—the fact that not only will the secretary be having to decide whether to take enforcement action when there has been non-compliance but also have a register and investigations.

I wonder, around the complaints to the secretary—and this is probably not something the Minister had any involvement with, but, really, this will be where a lot of the enforcement action comes from. It’s interesting that it comes after the outlines in relation to liability—that would be my understanding, anyway. I think these are just some very important, significant questions around the effectiveness of the civil regime as opposed to the criminal regime. I know colleagues will have further questions around the complaint process that the secretary will follow.

12:04

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just responding to a couple of the queries we’ve had this morning. Helen White asked about the take-down notices and practicality of going to the High Court. Look, the High Court is the most appropriate court for these types of measures, because it’s quite similar to other regimes that we have in New Zealand, such as the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act. The regulator will also work with other overseas regulators to enforce.

Camilla Belich was asking about the offence to gamble on behalf of a person under 18 and why it was just one provision. Ultimately, that’s because Cabinet agreed to one offence. The secretary has a range of other tools available to address potential breaches.

I’m going to call Ingrid Leary, but I’ve been watching the debate for quite some time, and I don’t want any more speeches. This is not a reference to the current member on her feet. I think we really need to home in now, because we’ve spent quite considerable time on a bill that’s already had a process of select committee.

12:05

Thank you, Madam Chair. My specific question is on the offence of online casino gambling on behalf of a person under 18 years old, in clause 66. When we look at what that offence covers, it’s basically somebody who’s either gambling on behalf of an under-18-year-old or is reckless about that. I wonder what attention was given to the circumstances in which that might arise. We have heard that there is a harm minimisation element to the purpose of this bill. The only scenario that I can think of that would really apply in clause 66 is when the person who is doing the online gambling on behalf of the under-18-year-old has a gambling harm issue themselves. This is the only provision where there has been an offence created. We have all sorts of other potential harms happening such as advertising to under-18-year-olds or advertising outside of the regulations, which are all in the regulatory regime, yet the one single offence that seems to have appeared in this bill that is not a civil liability matter is most likely to occur when somebody has a gambling harm problem.

What advice did the Minister receive about that? Did she talk to health officials or anyone from the mental health part of the Ministry of Health? Why did she decide to only include this as an offence, which seems to be doing the opposite of what the bill says on the tin? It seems to be punishing somebody with an online gambling harm problem, and yet there is a plethora of other potential problems that should be, in our view, covered by offences rather than a civil liability regime.

I’ll take another question from Camilla Belich, because you signalled before that you had another point to make, but I’m getting very close to ending this part, so you need to keep it really relevant.

12:08

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just note, I do have a question in relation to Subpart 3. Additionally, there is Subpart 4 and Subpart 5, which haven’t been touched on, before we come onto Part 5. I’ll endeavour to get as many questions in those relevant sections as I can.

The question I have in relation to Subpart 3 is in relation to complaints to the Secretary for Internal Affairs. I was reading through this quite carefully, and the question I have for the Minister is: does this give the secretary jurisdiction to investigate complaints by family members or third parties in relation to the online casino gambling operator? The reason I think that’s important is because, in many of these instances where, obviously, an improper activity may have occurred, we may be dealing with someone who has an addiction to gambling who needs assistance, and it may be that only family members or third parties are aware of the way that an operator is operating. It may be, in that instance, that they don’t have perfect information.

I wanted to just check with the Minister whether she could get some advice on whether imperfect information that perhaps maybe the individual themselves who’s participating in the gambling may have access to would be able to be considered in complaints to the secretary. I do think that that’s important, because I think it may be that family members complain to the operator, but it may be that if there are many complaints in relation to the same operator, then that gives additional reason and additional concern to the secretary to be able to investigate that. That’s in relation to Subpart 3.

I think, the other point, which is also important, is: to what extent will there be initiative taken—I’m talking to clause 72 in Subpart 4 here—when the secretary is looking to share information with overseas regulators? Will this be something that is on a request basis or whether they feel that there’s, perhaps, an online gambling operator that might be operating in many jurisdictions that may need to have information shared across borders because they are acting in a way which is, perhaps, contrary to the different jurisdictions?

Now, this is quite a complex thing and, again, goes to the additional duties that the secretary will have in relation to making sure that they comply with these duties under this Act. It’s a considerable task to assess all of the information available in relation to complaints that may be raised by the regulator and then decide whether that is to be shared with overseas operators as well. Of course, they’ll have slightly different jurisdictions, and the breaches may be slightly different, but, of course, if someone’s acting in a way that ignores all of the different provisions, then that could be that they do want to share that.

In relation to Subpart 5, this is the public register of operators and licences, and I wanted to know, and I didn’t get to ask this question earlier, but this physical address in New Zealand—this has come up in previous sections as well, but I don’t think has been touched on; we did talk about the territorial issues in Part 1—when we talk about the physical address for service in New Zealand, is this able to be a PO Box? Does this have to be a physical address that could actually, for example, be used to contact someone where there’s a human being there or an actual physical location; or could it just be, in fact, a PO Box that could be forwarding to an overseas address? So that provision is not only in this provision. I wanted to ask that question in an earlier stage; I didn’t have the opportunity and I wanted to know if that was the case, because that does go to the integrity of the register as outlined in clause 74 and the information that will be available to people who want to be able to hold these people to account. If we don’t know where they are, it’s going to be extremely difficult, and the high likelihood is that the majority of these companies will be overseas-based companies.

So I really want to know that specific question. Others may have questions in relation to the public register, but that was my specific one.

12:12

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just tidying up a few of these queries and concerns.

Firstly, to Ingrid Leary, which was in some ways quite repetitive, based on previous ones that we’ve already had before. Ultimately, Cabinet agreed that there would be one offence and we want to make sure, as a Cabinet, that children under 18 were protected from the risk of harm from gambling and the Ministry of Health was consulted during the development of this bill.

Camilla Belich then asked about the Secretary for Internal Affairs having jurisdiction to investigate complaints by third parties. Yes, this is possible. That process, for complaints to the secretary, is set out in clauses 68 to 70.

Camilla Belich also asked about sharing information with overseas regulators: the secretary has ability to share information with privacy restrictions in place and that is context dependent.

12:13

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Mike Davidson’s amendments to clause 66 as set out on Amendment Paper 547 are ruled out of order as being inconsistent with the previous decision of the committee.

12:15

Thanks, Madam Chair. I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to Part 5, clause 77, “Regulations relating to advertising and marketing”. I do have a tabled amendment with some specific requests—that I want to replace and insert a new clause 77(3)(c).

We have heard comments from previous speakers and colleagues with regards to minimising harm and protecting our young ones—our children. My amendment speaks to inserting a new clause banning any online or internet-based advertising or marketing where the intended recipient of such marketing or advertising is under 18 years old. We have to be cognisant of online platforms that are available to specifically under-18s—our children, our young people. We know, through general platforms, that there is quite the saturation in terms of advertising. I wanted to ask the Minister: what advice has she received with respect to this clause? We have concerns with advertising and marketing, given that there is little known about those applications of licence holders that will be coming into a system. They’re obviously big companies that some of them may have world-wide operations, so they’re very skilled in their business operations as to marketing things that they do on their platforms.

Minister, what type of advice or what do the officials say in terms of this provision? How strict will those advertising mechanisms be, given the fact that we are really concerned on this side of the committee of the harm that is going to be caused. Whilst we may not get full prohibition, we know that this is going to regulate a market that has been there for quite some time.

One of the things that I do want to raise, Minister, is: what type of advice did you receive, in that these platforms are being updated all the time. It’s a real competition for overseas companies to be able to come into New Zealand, do their products, and I still have a strong concern around them not having to be located or domiciled in New Zealand.

I do have another question with regards to the marketing tools that these companies, which we don’t know—there are strong provisions around the regulations—however, the type of products that they are going to be able to extrapolate across their products. In terms of how will you be assured or how will the public of New Zealand be assured that our young people, specifically our children, are going to be protected from these types of platforms or licensing holders. I can tell you now: kids in South Auckland, specifically those under 18, have access to devices. Sure, they provide good things like communication with their parents, education—they’re used for education. There are some prohibitions around there, around recent announcements by Government, but I want to ask that question on behalf of parents and caregivers who have specifically asked me around consumer protections: how will our children be protected? Thank you, Minister.

12:19

Madam Chair, thank you very much. I will speak to the queries about clause 77, to the Amendment Paper 533 in Mike Davidson’s name. Look, it is not necessary that we have a new provision within the law talking about harm minimisation enforcement of age restrictions, because it is already in here. Operators will be required to set out their advertising and marketing strategies about how the operator will comply with regulations under clause 77. The effective controls on advertising will mitigate the risk of increased gambling and gambling harm through restrictions on the form, content, timing, frequency, volume, location, and audience. The bill also requires that regulations must be made that minimise the risk of harm from advertisements and marketing and minimising advertisements and marketing to people under the age of 18. So it is unnecessary.

Yes, it is true that a lot of the detail is in the regulations, but the Department of Internal Affairs did consult with a range of stakeholders, including health and research sectors, with the Problem Gambling Foundation and others through this process of policy development. There are quite a few that we could go to at length, but I’ll just give you a small number. For the ones that I know are available online, because Cabinet has made them proactively released: operators must not target ads at those under the age of 25 unless the operator can demonstrate that the ads can be precisely targeted at consumers over the age of 18. Where reasonably practicable, targeted age gating must be implemented to ensure advertising is only shown to those over the age of 18. Advertising during or 30 minutes before or after a live broadcast of an event that would reasonably attract viewership of children is prohibited. Placing ads where more than 20 percent of the expected audience is under the age of 18 is prohibited. Placing ads where those under 18 are reasonably likely to be exposed to frequent online casino gambling ads is prohibited. Operators must exclude those who have self-excluded or those identified by an operator as a problem gambler from receiving direct and loyalty programme advertising. I could go on, but they are at length and publicly available.

12:22

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Just focusing on an Amendment Paper from my colleague Mike Davidson, 553—not 533, which was just spoken about. It relates to clause 77. I appreciate the Minister has just outlined some of the intents of how she will intend to, I guess, operationalise this clause, but the amendment seeks to strengthen the language in clause 77(1), because, at the moment, what we have is that “The Governor-General may, by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister, make regulations”. We believe that this opens the door for a future Minister to, basically, leave those provisions relatively unregulated. So our amendment strengthens the language from “may” to “must”, so that the Minister has to actually take action on this. I am particularly concerned that the language around “may” could lead a future Government to just not do anything about this, and that would be concerning.

The amendment also would add additional language after clause 77(1)(e) to also insert “(including prohibiting the use of any advertisement whose intended audience is a particular cultural group)”. Now, we know that, for some of our migrant and ethnic communities, there may be specific targeting that may occur, using cultural signifiers or other means of advertisement that specifically seeks to target them on the basis of their cultural identity. We think that adding this language into clause 77 will also give the Minister an additional tool to assess whether there is that level of targeting based on culture as well.

In the amendment, we also suggest replacing clause 77(1)(f), that is on page 43, lines 29 and 39, with “prohibiting the use of endorsements, sponsorships, and similar third-party arrangements in advertising (including affiliate marketing);”. We believe that, basically, this will strengthen the ability for the Minister to prevent influencers from being able to operate in ways that seek to cause harm to our communities, particularly young audiences. So we wanted to engage with the Minister as to—and I want to go back to the language of “may” versus “must”—does she think that the language as written adequately safeguards a future Minister who may be more inclined to deregulate or take a hands-off approach to the provisions in clause 77? If she thinks that this is a legitimate concern, would she be agreeable to make sure that Ministers have to actually consider all the provisions in clause 77?

I also want to know whether she has seen any advertisement or has received feedback of advertisement that specifically targets people on the basis of culture—whether that’s something that she received feedback on in preparation of the bill, and, if she didn’t, whether she thinks that this is an oversight in how clause 77 is written.

I also want to know if the amendment from my colleague Mike Davidson would better address the use of influencer’s platforms to try and entice young people online towards online gambling. We know this is a very genuine and concerning issue that has been raised with many of us. We think that the language in the amendment that we’ve provided will help address this because of the affiliate marketing language that we’re adding in there, which is the distinction as well. So, again, we’re trying to engage in good faith with these amendments and strengthen the provisions of this bill and seeking engagement with the Minister, particularly around the “may” versus “must” language. Thank you.

12:26

Thank you. Speaking to Ricardo Menéndez March’s questions about changing clause 77(1) to “The Governor-General must, by Order in Council … make regulations”. Look, it’s actually not convention to require the Governor-General to do anything or to force her to do anything, so this Government is not going to now force the Governor-General to make recommendations. But if it is of any help to the member, it is not necessary to change the language to be stronger in order to try and force regulations for harm minimisation to be made, because I as the Minister am already doing that. The regulations will come into force and they’ll be there in force before people can legally advertise. So I don’t believe it is necessary, and also quite a strange change of convention.

For the Amendment Paper 553 that Ricardo Menéndez March has asked on behalf of Mike Davidson, I don’t believe this is also necessary. It talks about prohibiting the use of endorsements, sponsorships, and similar third-party arrangements and ads, and prohibiting any use of ads whose intended audience is a particular cultural group. The reason why I don’t believe that that is necessary is because the publicly released regulations on advertising and marketing restrictions include the requirement that ads must not play on people’s fears, beliefs, superstitions, or use cultural symbols, names, or imagery likely to cause serious or widespread offence. Cabinet has also agreed to prohibit endorsement sponsorships already, and that includes things like social media influencers. Therefore, there is no need to place this detail of restriction into the law.

12:28

Thank you, Madam Chair. Part 5, the regulations relating to harm prevention and minimisation, clause 75—I think it’s important that we get the Minister on the Hansard regarding what her expectation is around how those regulations will work. She has mentioned that the reason to put them in regulation is for there to be flexibility, and we appreciate that, but also we do have the issue of regulatory capture and the real risk of that with the creation of this regulated sector and the expansion of it simultaneously.

So what appears to be missing and what I haven’t heard answers from in other parts but relates very much to this section is how will she monitor the impact of the advertising? Because what we see in the bill is a very inputs-orientated regime which makes assumptions about the level of harm that will be reduced by having certain criteria around advertising. However, we haven’t heard from the Minister in response to our questions for evidence of that, so it’s based on assumptions and a theory, and it may well bear out. However, it may be that we find there is an explosion in harm in New Zealand after the advertising takes place. What are the mechanisms in this part of the bill that enable monitoring of the harm, and what is her expectation around the changes to the regulations to reduce risk and harm in the event that the advertising regime that comes in under regulations in December 2026 does not appear to be working in that respect?

It may be working in terms of consumer protection, which is something very different. I did not hear answers from the Minister to my questions last night about her understanding of the differences between consumer protection and harm, but this is where the proof would be in the pudding. It is to have a mechanism, and, if there isn’t, then what is her expectation so that in the event that we see reports of increased harm, there can be real pressure put on to change the regulations, and not to have the converse happen—which, in my view, is more likely—which is that there is lobbying pressure from the sector that means those advertisement regulations won’t change and there will be a complete disconnect between the advertising regime regulatory environment and the harm that is being caused?

12:31

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it’s quite important to note that on this side, we actually support good regulation, and the problem with this bill as it stands is that the regulations are not good enough. We are trying to put forward lots of amendments to make it better than what it currently stands as.

I just want to continue talking to some of my amendments that I’ve put forward. I won’t talk to Amendment Paper 552, because that was also about replacing “may” with “must be”, and, obviously, that’s been spoken to before. I’ll skip past that one and I’ll talk to Amendment Paper 551. This is around clause 75, and it’s adding another paragraph to it, which is paragraph (ab). It is prescribing mandatory limits on the amount that may be deposited and then lost from an account on a gambling platform over a specified period of time.

I think this a really important amendment and it will achieve quite a good outcome, because what we know about the harm is that it’s sometimes the amount of money that is lost in a very short period of time. While people can put money into an account, sometimes the telltale sign is actually how much they’re losing and how quickly they’re losing it. This is actually a suggestion from Lotto to do this, and I think it could really help this bill create better outcomes around harm prevention and minimisation if we were to put some limits on what people can put in and also what people can lose over a specified period of time in order to ensure that we’re taking the most care with the regulations.

I think if we can strengthen the regulations, we’re going to actually get better outcomes for people. We know that the harm from gambling is actually very, very severe and it is a mental health issue as well, and we need to be doing the most we can to try to help in this space. We just find that the regulations and this bill as it currently stands aren’t meeting those needs, and so I’d like the Minister to consider this additional amendment to try and really get some good outcomes from this bill. Thank you.

12:33

Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, to Ingrid Leary talking about how will we monitor the impact of advertising over time? Look, Cabinet has agreed to a three-year review of the legislation to check that it is working and if any changes are needed. There are monitoring and compliance pathways as part of the function of the Secretary for Internal Affairs in clause 18. Regulations can also be changed quickly if required, but, importantly, it does require the scrutiny of Cabinet.

Amendment Paper 551, which Mike Davidson has just referenced, which is prescribing the mandatory limits—look, I don’t believe that that is necessary or appropriate as different people have different limits on how much they can afford to lose in a period of time, and the regulations will enable people to set their own limits themselves.

Cabinet has also agreed that operators must offer customers the ability to exclude themselves, and I think this is quite important when it comes to the status quo, where we have a completely unregulated online casino gambling market at the moment, where there are no set limits. If there is a mandatory limit that is set under law and it is too low, there will be less channelling into the appropriate regulated market as people may find that there’s less consumer choice and will simply opt to use the black market.

12:35

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 75 as set out on Amendment Paper 551 be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendments to clause 75 as set out on Amendment Paper 552 be agreed to.

Mike Davidson’s amendments to clauses 75 and 77 as set out on Amendment Paper 544 are ruled out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendments to clause 77 as set out on Amendment Paper 553 be agreed to.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendments to clause 77 as set out on Amendment Paper 554 be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendments replacing clause 77(3)(b) and inserting new clause 77(3)(c) be agreed to.

The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendment to clause 77(3)(b) to restrict the hours of television and radio advertising be agreed to.

Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 77 as set out on Amendment Paper 543 is ruled out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

Mike Davidson’s amendment to clause 77 as set out on Amendment Paper 547 is ruled out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Mike Davidson’s amendment to insert new clause 80AAA as set out on Amendment Paper 555 be agreed to.